


(a love) a lantern in the dark

by sameboots



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Slow Build, Unplanned Pregnancy, but it's kind of inconvenient, flangst, jaime lannister: human disaster, post-8x04, slow rebuilding of trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:43:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sameboots/pseuds/sameboots
Summary: Brienne stalks to him, standing in front of him as he shakes the ash and soot out of his hair and clothes. He looks up to find her standing there, the shock writ heavy across his brows, in the slackening of his jaw. She cups his face, thumbing at the smut on his cheeks.“Are you okay?”He blinks several times before a beatific smile spreads across his face. “I am.”She nods once, decidedly. “Good.”Then she pulls back and punches him square in his nose.--A post-8x04 "fix-it" fic. Jaime survives his trip back south and the ensuing battle for King's Landing. Cersei does not. Brienne's trust has been broken, and there's the slight baby-shaped complication from their time in Winterfell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To say that I'm upset by the events of 8x04 would be an understatement. It did result in a conversation with my fiancee in which I expressed that if Brienne is pregnant on this show and it's used for angst, I will pee on everything D&D love. However, somehow that triggered me to write a fic in which Brienne is pregnant? My brain confuses even me. The pregnancy, by the way, is based on the fact that 8x04 spanned about a month and then it takes a few weeks to get to King's Landing, and the presumption that Brienne and Sansa would take a while to prep for the trip south. Just assume Brienne is about 7 weeks pregnant at the start of the story. 
> 
> This is a work-in-progress but I have the whole fic blocked out. It's merely a matter of getting all the words written. I think I could use the pressure of posting it a chapter at a time to get it finished before the end of the season (and, frankly, if things go poorly for our ship, to keep me writing through that!).

For the first time in weeks, Jaime is standing before her, stumbling out of the ruins of what was once the Red Keep onto the grounds of what was once a city. The smell of charred flesh and burnt hair lingers in the air, the cries of countless citizens and soldiers still ringing her ears. And yet, here is Jaime, who has the least reason to still be living, stumbling out of a burning mess, looking no worse than he did after the Battle of Winterfell. Granted, that’s not the best he has ever looked, but still very far from dead, and even further from what someone stumbling out of that building should look.

 

Brienne stalks to him, standing in front of him as he shakes the ash and soot out of his hair and clothes. He looks up to find her standing there, the shock writ heavy across his brows, in the slackening of his jaw. She cups his face, thumbing at the smut on his cheeks. 

 

“Are you okay?” 

 

He blinks several times before a beatific smile spreads across his face. “I am.”

 

She nods once, decidedly. “Good.”

 

Then she pulls back and punches him square in his nose. She turns and strides away, looking back over her shoulder to leave him bleeding from his nose and mouth with, “I’m pregnant.” If Jaime looked flummoxed before her parting shot, he can only be adequately termed as flabbergasted when she faces away and stalks off. 

 

\--

 

He finds her in her makeshift quarters. Brienne doesn’t know whether to curse Sansa or thank her, for there’s certainly no one else that both knows where she is and would give Jaime the direction. He hovers awkwardly near the entrance. She makes no move to stand from her seat on the side of the bed. 

 

“Are you all right?” he asks. 

 

“Now?” she asks him, and continues before he can respond. “Or when you tried to sneak away from me in the middle of the night? Perhaps you meant when I discovered this?” She gestures to her stomach. “Or maybe you meant when we arrived in King’s Landing only to have your brother tell me that you had rushed into some half-cocked, foolhardy plan to kill the same sister you claimed to leave me for?” 

 

Jaime flinches like she’s punched him again. She cannot find it within herself to feel sympathy for him. 

 

“Brienne,” he begins, but she cuts him off. 

 

“Don’t.” She stands and walks toward him, jerking him into the room by his arm and shutting the door behind them. “You could have told me,” she hisses at him fiercely, still gripping his arm tight enough to bruise. “You  _ should _ have told me.”

 

“I  _ couldn’t _ ,” he insists. 

 

“Why?” she demands. 

 

He’s bathed since she walked away from him, but he hasn’t shaved. She thinks he’s turned even grayer since he left her in that courtyard, shaking and crying and questioning everything she knew about herself. He swallows heavily and she can see the twitch in his hand like he wants to reach out for her, but knows her better than that, at least.

 

“Would you have let me leave?” he asks. “If you had known my plans, as indeterminate as they were at the time, would you have let me come here alone?” She doesn’t answer him right away, some desperate feeling clogging her throat. “I couldn’t risk you. She was going to kill you. She wouldn’t have stopped until she killed the both of us. I couldn’t have your death on my hands. Not you. Anyone but you.”

 

Brienne feels the tears flood her eyes and curses herself. After one sleepless night, sobbing under the furs that still smelled like the both of them, wondering how she could have read him so poorly, how she could have been so wrong about him and them and what they had, she had sworn she would not be dismantled by a man. She was Ser Brienne of Tarth, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, defender of the living, sworn sword of Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, and she would not let a dalliance bring her asunder. 

 

She turns from him, even though she knows he’s seen. He does reach for her then, his fingers brushing along her hand. She jerks from him like he’s burned her, she can’t help it. His touch feels like a cruel joke. 

 

“I didn’t ask this of you,” she says when she finally has some control over her voice, knowing it won’t crack in the middle of a sentence. 

 

“Of course not, you would never ask me to do something so --”

 

“No,” she stops him once again. “I never asked for  _ this _ .” She gestures between the two of them, unable to prevent herself from letting her hand linger over the place where her stomach is just starting to bow outward. “Even after that first night, I had no expectations. You came back to me, Jaime. You said you were staying. You kept coming back to my bed night after night, then your clothing and your boots and your armor stayed in my room, next to mine. It took weeks for me to believe that you weren’t going to turn around one day and laugh in my face that I would ever think any man could want that with me. And then you  _ did _ .” 

 

She can’t prevent the tear that slips down her cheek, couldn’t stop it for all the gold in the seven kingdoms. 

 

“Only,” she continues as he stares at her, “you didn’t. You didn’t even have the decency to laugh in my face. I had to  _ catch you _ .” 

 

“Brienne,” he finally says. She looks at him through the burn of her own tears to see his own eyes wet and regretful. 

 

She crosses her arms across herself and steps back from him. “I think you should go.”

 

“Please,” he tries, reaching out to her. 

 

“No,” she says firmly. “You should go.” 

 

\--

 

Tyrion is the next Lannister idiotic enough to corner her. Granted, he’s the only other Lannister left. She’s forcing herself to gently chew and swallow a slice of bread no butter, knowing she has to eat despite the intense waves of nausea. 

 

“Ser Brienne.”

 

She lifts her head to find Tyrion Lannister standing across the table from her, hands folded in front him. She almost laughs at the feigned supplication, but she’s worried what the hiccuping motion in her throat would do to her hard-earned nourishment. It would ruin her stoicism if she lost her meal all over the table.

 

“Lord Tyrion,” she greets him with a nod. “To what do I owe the honor?” 

 

“May I sit?” he asks, gesturing to the bench across from her. 

 

“Of course,” she says, meaning not a word of it. 

 

Tyrion sits across from her, the ever-present goblet of wine in hand. He stares into the red liquid as he swirls it, watching it trail around the bronze, clinging to the etchings. Brienne has been around enough politicians and Lannisters to know that Tyrion is biding his time, hoping she’ll do his work for him. But Brienne has never been the one to fold first, especially not in the face of such obvious tactics. Tyrion finally relents and takes a gulp of wine before fixing his eyes on hers. 

 

“My brother has been to see you,” he says. She doesn’t respond. It doesn’t require a response, he already knows the answer. Instead, she stares at him and takes another small bite of bland bread. She slowly chews and swallows first one bite then a second before Tyrion’s expression cracks into a rueful smile. “I can see now why he’s been trailing around the area like a wounded animal. You don’t give an inch, do you, Ser?”

 

“Lord Tyrion,” she begins but he cuts her off with a, “Tyrion, please.” She gives him a bland look. “You must have some purpose to come see me, it would be best for everyone if you tell me straight out.”

 

“Very well.” Tyrion takes another swig of wine. “My brother is a fool.” Brienne can’t quite contain her half-hearted snort at that. “But he is a fool who would do anything for those he loves.”

  
“My lord,” she begins, trying to stem whatever tide of explanation Tyrion feels compelled, or compelled by Jaime, to share. He quells her protest with a hand. 

 

“Please, let me say my piece,” he says, a sudden serious plea in his expression. She nods. “Jaime has always been … reckless when it comes to the ones he loves the most. Whatever he did or said before he came here, he did it out of love.”

 

“Did he send you to speak with me?” Brienne asks, feeling like the bread has lodged in her throat. 

 

“No.” Tyrion leans across the table toward her. “He would probably be righteously indignant that I was meddling at all. At least speak with him. Let him make a hash of his reasons before you make your final decision.”

 

Brienne closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to push down the rising tide of nausea. 

 

“I will speak with him,” she says, opening her eyes and looking at Tyrion with all the detached reserve she can summon. “But I don’t know what he could say.” 

 

\-- 

 

When the soft tap comes at Brienne’s door two days after her conversation with Tyrion, she doesn’t even need to guess who is standing on other side. Jaime finally shaved his beard and his hair has been trimmed, leaving him looking too unfamiliar for her comfort. He looks like a relic from the past, neat and clean and outfitted in the Lannister reds and golds once more. He wanders in a circle around the tidy room, shoulders tense, fingers trailing across the sparse furnishings. 

 

He finally breaks the awful silence between them. “Tyrion tells me he spoke with you.” 

 

“He did.” Brienne nods, affecting the most relaxed stance she can muster. 

 

Jaime just looks at her and the frustration and tension and words clinging in his throat make him achingly familiar. It makes her long for a time when she could still ignore it, when she didn’t know exactly what that look meant. 

 

“Brienne,” he says. She doesn’t know if he means for it to sound pleading, to sound like he’s begging her to help him. He hasn’t earned that from her. 

 

“Why are you here?” she asks him, tightening her jaw. 

 

“I came to beg your forgiveness,” he says, and she cuts him off before he can say whatever he opened his mouth to say next. 

 

“Then you have wasted a trip, Ser Jaime,” she says, turning away from him and moving to the door to open it and usher him out. 

 

“And to ask you to marry me,” he says, firmly, as if he didn’t hear her dismissal. She stops in her tracks, the air knocked out of her lungs, her mind scrambling to make sense of what he’s said. 

 

She turns to him, eyes wide and confused, an angry swirl of emotions she can’t even pick apart in the face of such ill-timed presumption.

 

“I beg your pardon?” She’s aware that he’s attempting to answer, but she doesn’t even hear the words, can’t process them before she asks, “Have you lost your mind?” 

 

“I have sired five bastards now,” he says, his face open and aching so much she doesn’t roll her eyes at the understatement. “Three of my children are dead. I failed to protect them. I wasn’t allowed to protect them, not as a father should. The fourth died in its mother’s womb. This child,  _ our _ child,” and she bristles that he would dare claim this child without her permission, “is my chance to be the father I should have been.” 

 

“You’ll forgive me if I find it difficult to trust your word,” she says, her muscles taut with indignation. 

 

She sees something shift in his gaze, that old predatory gleam lingering at the edges of the more apparently pain.

 

“Where will you go now?” he asks her, even his tone shifting to something a little harsher. 

 

“I’m going home to Tarth,” she answers. “Lady Sansa has released me from her service. She rightly pointed out that I could hardly be a proper guard when I am--” she hesitates around the phrase, it still feels so foreign in relation to herself. “When I am with child. Now that she’s Queen of the North, she will have her Queensguard to protect her.”    
  


“And what will the people of Tarth have to say when the only heir to the Evenstar comes home, a soldier whose bravery was proven in battle, heavily pregnant by the very knight who gave her the title?” 

 

His tone is so acerbic that Brienne physically flinches from it. She knows he’s right. She’s battled with the same questions every night since she first realized why she was sick in the morning and tired as if she hadn’t slept at all no matter how many hours she managed. She thought she wouldn’t have a choice. She had always been a disappointment to the people of Tarth, to her father, to the world at large. What was a bastard child on top of everything else? But she knows that’s not quite true. It’s one thing to be too ugly and too large to be a lady. It’s one thing to be better at swordplay than most men. It’s another thing entirely to arrive home from war, heavy with an unnamed man’s child.

 

“I know that you don’t want to marry me,” Jaime says, and she skewers him with a sharp look that seems to make the corners of his mouth tilt just slightly, just the barest hint, so small she may have imagined it. “I know you don’t trust me. I know that you may never forgive me. But please, don’t take your anger out on me when a marriage in name only will protect not only you, but also our child from the censure of the whole of Westeros.”

 

He’s right. She knows he’s right and she hates him to her very bones for it. Brienne has always known the world is not a fair place for the likes of her. But she thought she had prepared herself for the multitude of forms that could take. She was not prepared to grapple with the sort of situation that resulted from indiscretions, from passion, from want, from the feel of another person’s desire matching your own. She has no vocabulary for this problem, no strategy for how to approach it. And she knows, she knows that she has to say yes to him. She doesn’t want her,  _ their _ , child to start life with no family name, no father, no access to the future that it was her duty to provide. 

 

Brienne closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before looking at him squarely and saying, “All right.” He blinks at her like he doesn’t quite understand. She clenches her teeth and clarifies, “I will marry you.”

 

All of the tension leaches from him at once. “And will you let me be a father to the child?” 

 

She wants to say no. She wants to deny him something. Some dark, seething piece of her soul wants to hurt him the way she still hurts. She’s never been a vengeful person, but the pain of this question, of his previous question, of being offered what she had foolishly let herself begin to hope for in truth given in farce, nearly overwhelms her. 

 

“We will be married, everyone will know you are the child’s father,” she says. “I could hardly prevent it, even if I wished to.”

 

His mouth does tilt then, into a soft, sad imitation of a smile. 

 

“You might be surprised,” he says after a breath. “Should I come back in the morning to discuss preparations?” She nods curtly and he returns it. “Good day, my lady.” 

 

And with a bow, he is gone, the door shut softly behind him. She wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to punch a wall until her knuckles bleed. She wants to slice and hack with a sword until her muscles feel like dead weights attached to her. She does none of this. Instead, she sinks to the side of her bed and buries her face in her hands trying to breathe through the shock of what she just agreed to. 


	2. Chapter Two

Jaime has barely left her rooms the next morning when another, softer rap comes at the door. Brienne opens it to find Sansa standing there in all of her glorious, regal bearing.

 

“May I come in?” she asks. Brienne knows she’s truly asking. Despite her new status as true Queen of the North, Sansa respects Brienne’s privacy.

 

“Of course, Your Grace.” Brienne steps aside from the doorway, giving a short half-bow as Sansa enters.

 

Sansa rolls her eyes and levels an unimpressed look at Brienne.

 

“Shouldn’t we be past the formalities, _Ser_ Brienne?”

 

“Of course.” Brienne can feel her cheeks heat with her blush. “My apologies, Sansa.”

 

Sansa waves the apology away with her hand, clearly bent on some greater purpose.

 

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Sansa says without prelude.

 

“Yes, I do,” Brienne says, the words sinking in her stomach like stones in a pond.

 

“I could find you another man,” Sansa says. “We could certainly find a good man that wouldn’t mind claiming your child. I do have _some_ power as Queen.”

 

Brienne shakes her head vehemently.

  
“I don’t want--” She stops herself, the words catching on her tongue. She doesn’t want another man. She doesn’t want Jaime either, not now, not when the mere sight of him makes her feel queasy, makes her chest hurt. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the father of my child. He has promised that it will be a marriage in name only, and that he will require nothing of me that I am unwilling to give.”

 

“And you want to give him your hand in marriage?” Sansa asks, the incredulity apparent in every syllable.

 

“Wouldn’t that be better than some poor man that would never want _me_ as a wife? You know that your position would pressure anyone else into agreeing to marry me and claim a bastard as his own.”

 

Sansa’s expression shifts out of the cold, detached face she shows the outside world, the one she cloaked herself in for protection for years. It was only after Jon was installed on the Throne and promised her the North that she began to let people see the Sansa that once was, the soft-hearted woman that cared deeply for the people around her, who dreamed of a better, happier world.

 

“I’ve been married to a cruel man,” Sansa finally says, her tone still distant. “I don’t want that for anyone else, but especially not for you.”

 

“Jaime is not a cruel man,” Brienne protests automatically. Sansa levels her with an expression that clearly conveys disbelief. “He’s not cruel in that way. He thought he was protecting me. He did it poorly and he broke the trust I had in him, and in what we had, but he is not purposefully cruel for the sake of hurting someone. He took no pleasure in what he did.”

 

“And yet he did it anyway.” Sansa stares at Brienne, searching her face for something. Brienne desperately wants to look away from Sansa’s eyes, but knows that would be admitting something she has to keep close to her breast.

 

“I don’t believe he knew how badly it would hurt.” Brienne sighs, finally looking down at her feet and gathering her composure. “We talked, before he left, not extensively. I know some of what his relationship with Cersei was, how they treated each other. I don’t think he knows how to --” Brienne falters, searching for the right words to convey the depths to which Jaime was formed by his relationship with his sister. “He only knows how to hurt, how to go for the softest point when fighting, but he expects it to be forgiven in the next breath.”

 

“And you have already forgiven him?” Sansa asks, her tone laced with a coil of judgment and worry.

 

“No,” Brienne replies, a bit less firmly than she would like.

 

“Yet, you have agreed to marry a man that knows how to hurt, but does not understand the impact of his actions?” Now Sansa is all disbelief. “Forgive me, but that seems to be a recipe for a lifetime of pain. And if that is not cruelty, I don’t know what is.”

 

“I don’t have a choice,” Brienne responds, her throat tight, unwanted tears flooding her eyes. She seems to do nothing but cry these days, shackled by her own body to a life she never wanted.

 

“You _do_ ,” Sansa insists, determined to save Brienne as Brienne has saved her time and again.

 

“I love him,” Brienne whispers, miserably and angrily and desperately. When she looks up and through the haze of her tears, she sees something like dawning pity on Sansa’s face. “I hate him. But I love him. There has been no other man. What I believed I felt for Renly was a pale, wane thing. Jaime --” she stops and takes a deep breath, trying to remain calm, trying to keep the sobs building in her chest to a minimum. “What I feel for him cannot be walled off and ignored. I tried to for years, because I knew it was hopeless, the silly imaginings of a girl and not a soldier. I don’t know that I could ever bear his touch again, but I _know_ that I could never bear to lay with anyone else, to share my life with them.”

 

“Then I wish you happiness,” Sansa says after an achingly long silence. She walks until she’s in front of Brienne and clasps Brienne’s hands in her own, giving them a firm squeeze. “And I hope that you can find some measure of it, eventually.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Sansa gives her hands one more squeeze and with that, Brienne is left alone. Once again.

 

\--

 

The wedding is a wedding to all appearances. Jaime cloaks her for her protection, as ludicrous as the notion is for the both of them, the heavy weight settling around her shoulders, wrapping her in a warmth that somehow feels like a lie. They recite their vows, promising to be each other’s from this day until the last of their days. Brienne tries not to cry for want of it to be real. She doesn’t doubt the promises made, doesn’t fear that Jaime will abandon her once again now that the only woman that was a threat has been burned to ashes.

  
She wants to cry for the twisting constriction of her heart. Because she thought it could be real. Because only a few months ago, lying next to him in her bed, the room smelling of their scents combined, his bare skin pressed against her own, she let herself imagine this day. A version of this day. One where she smiled as she walked toward him. One where he grinned at her, his eyes brightening at the very sight of her and their future together. One where the child growing in her belly was intentional and wanted and not the by-product of the most painful experience of Brienne’s life. One where when he kissed her to seal their vows, her heart soared in her chest instead of sinking to the pit of her stomach. One where she kissed him back for gods and men to see that she is happy, that someone loves her as she loved them, and that a happiness she never thought was meant for her is hers to keep.

 

And then, they are in her chambers once again. There was no wedding feast, no lavish display of food and dance, only the ceremony and a brief respite for a quiet dinner with a reticent Sansa and some of the soldiers still alive. The room is different, there’s no wine on Jaime’s breath, no brash intrusion into her space. But the feeling is the same, the strange sparking nerves under her skin, watching him and trying to decipher him.

 

Jaime is quiet, slowly unbuttoning his jerkin and shrugging it off as she watches him. He looks to her when he’s done, a question in his eyes. She swallows the bile rising in her throat as she realizes that he’s searching to see if her steady gaze is an invitation, if she has actually forgiven him. She turns away and removes the cloak still around her shoulders.

 

The only sound in the room is the soft rustling of them both removing their best clothing and dressing for bed, but his presence once more in her private space screams like the howling winds of winter, shooting down her spine like panic.

 

When she finally turns to face him again, her chest releases in relief that he is wearing a sleeping shirt. He usually does not, but, she thinks, perhaps that’s because they always --

 

“I’ll take the floor,” he says, interrupting her spiral of thoughts.

 

Brienne thinks about letting him, thinks about exiling him entirely, to sleep on the floor in front of her door. But instead she finds herself saying, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

Jaime raises his eyebrows at her.

 

“You’ll pardon me the presumption,” he says, wryly, familiarly, “but I got the distinct impression that my presence here was not wanted.” His gaze darts to the side, to her bed, to the bed they were expected to christen tonight in celebration of their union. “Particularly not in your bed.”

 

“To sleep,” Brienne insists. “You said you wanted to protect me, protect the child,” she says. “If you don’t share my bed, how will we explain the child?”

  
It sounds so logical to her in the moment. So obvious. But she knows, deep down, in the back of her mind, she _knows_ it’s a flimsy excuse. It’s not as if anyone will be checking her sheets for maiden’s blood in the morning. It’s likely no one would know if he slept on the floor or not. She doesn’t know how she can want him close and want to push him away. She doesn’t know how she can crave the warmth of him pressed against her and desperately need the cold distance from him, all at the same time, all muddling in her mind and heart.

 

She expects him to respond. She expects him to call her bluff. She expects him to make a joke, to leer, to invade the shattered walls around her bruised heart. Instead, he nods and walks to the right side of the bed, _his_ side of her bed, and slips beneath the covers.

 

When Brienne gets into the bed, she faces away from him, curling tightly in on herself at the very edge of the bed. She can hear him shift and glances behind her to see that he’s faced away as well, shoulder muscles tensed as if he’s bracing himself. She falls asleep fitfully and dreams of something better.

 

\--

 

If possible, the nausea plaguing Brienne is even worse once they set sail for Tarth. The gentle rolling of the ship over water, always a source of comfort in the past, seems to unsettle her stomach even more. She loses the contents of her midday meal into the bucket beside her bed within thirty minutes. Nothing seems to help; standing just makes her feel dizzy, but somehow lying down makes her feel the steady up and down motion of a ship bow over water even more distinctly, rolling her stomach along with it.

 

More than a week into their voyage, Brienne is starting to worry she may not make it. The constant sickness has left her feeling weak with exhaustion, the hunger pangs at odds with her inability to keep even plain bread in her stomach for more than an hour. There’s a soft knock at her cabin door and she very nearly tells the person to go away; the idea of heaving out of bed and walking the short distance seems insurmountable.

 

To find Jaime on the other side of the doorway only adds insult to injury.

 

“May I come in?” he asks. He affects an air of relaxation that she doesn’t buy for an instant.

 

She doesn’t answer, instead stepping aside to allow him entry.

 

“I’ve brought you something,” Jaime says, presenting a small bundle wrapped in brown paper. Brienne takes it hesitantly and the smell hits her, spicy somehow, and fresh. “It’s ginger root,” Jaime explains. “It helps with the nausea. It was the only thing that seemed to settle --”

 

He pauses, and Brienne can feel the ire rising in her breast. “You can say her name,” she all but spits at him. “It’s not as if I don’t know.”

 

Jaime blanches, his mouth firming into a straight line, his throat constricting with a choked swallow. “It was the only thing that calmed Cersei’s stomach during her pregnancies,” he says, finally, the words seeming to be drawn from him forcibly.

 

Brienne doesn’t want to let Cersei become a specter between them. Ignoring her, ignoring Jaime’s history with her, will serve no one in the end. He loved her, he fathered children by her, he would have happily married her and spent the rest of his days with her.

 

He murdered her.

 

And, consequently, the child in her belly. His child. They haven’t spoke of it. Brienne came by the knowledge secondhand, and she cannot bring herself to speak of it now. She’s not sure she wants to know, wants to hear the pain in his voice, the weight of that impossible choice. She doesn’t know if she can bear to know his thoughts about the child he lost with Cersei, not when his child grows within her.

 

“Fresh air might also help,” he says after she seems unlikely to respond to the gift. “You’ve been holed up in here since we set sail. Would you walk with me around the deck?”

 

Brienne stares at the bundle in her hand and then she looks at his face. She knows him so well, has memorized the planes of his face, the way his eyes crinkle even when the smile doesn’t touch his lips, the way his jaw tightens when he’s reining in the urge to lash out, the way his shoulders tense when he speaks to people he knows loathe him. The way his face softens when he’s above her, moving in her, his thumb brushing against her cheek bone, his fingers curled into her hair, his breath warm and humid against her own mouth before he claims it with his own.

 

So, she knows now that he’s frightened of her answer, that he’s bracing himself for rejection. Brienne can also tell that it will hurt him if she does so.

 

Brienne undoes the bow keeping the paper carefully tucked around the ginger root. It’s already been peeled and sliced into minute slivers. She places one on her tongue and closes her eyes as the peppery taste spills across her tongue, the flavor rushing through her nose and down her throat. It should make her sick, but instead it somehow feels refreshing, soothing, the first thing that seems to settle in her mouth without revolt in weeks. Her shoulders relax and when she opens her eyes again it’s to find Jaime gazing at her with something akin to pleasure, like he knows her face just as well, can see the relief in the relaxation of her muscles. She misses when that felt safe.

 

It’s a strange sensation that Jaime knows more about what she’s going through, what to expect, than she does. In the same moment, she’s grateful that someone does and that it’s a person who will give help without her asking, someone who knows just how little preparation she’s had for this. His suggestions of a walk on deck seems ludicrous, given that she feels unsteady on her feet even within the cozy confines of her cabin, and yet the soothing spice of ginger still lingers in her mouth, coaxing her to trust him in this at least.

 

“I would appreciate your assistance in a walk around the deck,” she says, relenting just a fraction, and judging herself for doing so. She could likely make it on a trip around the deck, and she finds that she is weak and in need of something she won’t admit to. “I’ve been unsteady on my feet. It would be a shame for me to tip overboard when I am finally on my way home.” She finds she can’t stop justifying it, either to herself, or to him, or to the gods and their mercy. “My father is expecting me,” she finishes softly.

 

“Of course. Ask me for whatever you need and I will do my best to provide.”

 

The statement settles heavy in her chest. She turns away, opening the cabin door once more. She rewraps the ginger and places it in her pocket before looking over her shoulder at him. She beckons him with no more than a look and he walks behind her as she climbs the stairs, and into the blinding sunshine. Jaime doesn’t try to take her arm, doesn’t move to touch her. But he’s close enough that she can feel his warmth against the cool breeze off the sea. The flapping of the sails and the smell of salt soothe her as little else can, wrapping around her securely, like a blanket against the cold.

 

She pauses with her hands braced against the railing, looking out over the expanse of blue-green waters softly rolling beneath them. She feels Jaime come up beside her, braced in a mirror of her own stance. She glances at his hand, remembers the heat of his palm, the comfort of his touch. It feels like a bruise she can’t resist poking. She moves her gaze from his hand to his face only to find him watching her closely.

 

“I saw Tarth once,” he tells her. “From a distance, but --” it seems he doesn’t know what to say now, or why he began to say it, his eyes moving along her face. “It was beautiful,” he finishes.

 

For a moment it feels like he’s talking about her. The way he looks at her is not the look of a man speaking only of a rocky, green island in the middle of the sea, but of something much more dear, much closer to his heart.

 

“It is.” She looks away from him. “It’s lovely and green. There was a time I longed to be away from it, away from the memories of my childhood and the cruelty people seem to contain in multitudes. But I’ve learned that every place is filled with cruel people. The world makes wounded fools of us all. I find myself --” she pauses, searching for the words. “I find myself longing for Evenfall, the familiar halls, my old bedchamber, the dreams I had when I was young.” She glances back at him, his gaze still trained on her face. Her mouth tips in a half-smile, rueful and bittersweet. “It all seems silly when I say it out loud.”

 

“No, it doesn’t. Far from it.” Jaime’s hand twitches on the railing and Brienne braces for his touch, her body tensing as if preparing for a fight. But then his hand settles again and she wonders if she saw it at all.  “I hope … I hope that it’s home.”

 

It sounds like he means for the both of them. The prospect of that burns in her chest, a flicker of despair and desire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you immensely to dollsome for truly pulling out an amazing and fast beta for me. I was hell-bent on posting this before episode 8x05 airs. But have no fear if you're enjoying this, this fic will be finished despite whatever torture canon holds for us. 
> 
> I also want to take a moment to thank every single person that commented on the last chapter. It was such a boost to my spirits.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we arrive on Tarth.
> 
> Also, in which we find out more of what happened with Cersei.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly thought I would have this up earlier. But then, I started a new job! Which was great! But THEN, my body decided sleep was truly unnecessary, but not a fun creative way. AND THEN, I had another cluster of migraines, that while not always excruciating, do always make my vision so blurry I can't really make out words. 
> 
> Weirdly, if you can't even read, it's hard to write. 
> 
> As always, a huge, tremendous thanks to my broseph from another moseph, [dollsome](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome) for a quick beta and for always being the best sounding board a writer could ask for. She also super recently published a post-8x05 one-shot that RUINED MY LIFE and everyone should read it. [Promising Light](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/18830839)

Brienne feels an overwhelming sense of relief the moment her feet touch solid ground. The sight of her father waiting for them, imperiously tall, shoulders as broad as a barn with a face to match, sends a wave of relief and happiness through Brienne’s body that nearly sweeps her feet from underneath her.

 

It only takes five long strides before Selwyn does it for her, pulling her into a hug that has Brienne’s feet lifted from the ground. Brienne has missed this feeling, someone large enough to make her feel protected and sheltered.

 

When he sets her down again, he cups her face in both his gloved hands. “Brienne.”

 

For the first time in months, a smile breaks across Brienne’s face. Her father, the only man that never looked at her to find fault, smiles back at her, his weathered face creasing into a hundred familiar lines, like a tapestry stitched of her childhood.

 

Tears flood her eyes. “Father.”

 

She hugs him again, arms wrapped around his barrel chest, burying her face against the leather of his doublet. He smells like home. The woodsmoke of the fireplaces, the spice of mulled wine, and the ever-present whiff of the sea clinging to every citizen of Evenfall. When she feels composed, she pulls away from him, half turning to look at Jaime behind her.

 

Jaime joins her, following her silent cues. Brienne takes a half-step back from her father so that she and Jaime are side-by-side, a show of solidarity they will both need.

 

“Father,” she gestures to Jaime, “my husband, Jaime Lannister.”

 

“Lord Tarth.” Jaime inclines his head in a half-bow. “It's a pleasure to finally meet you.” Jaime’s smile is a familiar one, charming and gallant. And false. Brienne can see the strain of it around the corners of his mouth, in the tightness near his eyes.

 

“Hm.” Selwyn looks Jaime up and down. Jaime only comes up to Selwyn’s shoulder, and for some reason, it pleases Brienne to see Jaime looking diminutive in some way. “Come, we’ve a feast waiting for us.”

 

“Father,” Brienne protests as Selwyn turns to walk up the embankment toward the castle.

 

Selwyn turns back to face her. “A meal, Brienne.” His tone is fatherly, not quite chiding, but with the weight of years of disregarded protestations. “For the three of us only, if you wish.”

 

Brienne has no choice but to follow her father up the hill, Jaime tagging along beside her.

 

\--

 

As promised, it’s only the three of them and more food for such a number than Brienne has seen in years. Since she first left Tarth, in fact. The nausea that plagued her for the entire journey has lessened significantly in the past week, but she still barely makes a dent in her plate of meats, cheeses, bread slathered in butter, and the portion of fruit that survived the winter. If her father takes notice, he thankfully says nothing.  But then, he seems disinclined to speech at all. Never a man of many words, he seems to have lost the few he’s prone to with Jaime nearby.

 

Jaime tries.

 

He starts the meal all broad smiles and charming anecdotes. There’s nothing of the war in him in those moments. Not beyond the grey streaked through his hair, and the lingering pale yellow of a faded bruise along his cheek. Brienne thought she would feel more pleasure watching the smile weaken, the ingratiating tone going sharp and strained around the edges. Instead, she finds that her aggravation with both men is nearing a breaking point by the time supper is finished.

 

Selwyn gestures for one of the servants near the door. “Cullyn, please show my daughter’s husband to their bedchamber.” Brienne rises to follow, but Selwyn stops her. “A word, Brienne, before you retire.”

 

Brienne should bristle at the commanding tone he’s taken. She’s not a child to be ordered around. Still, she’s not one to argue with her father.

 

She sits down again as Jaime rises to follow Cullyn. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Tarth.” He bows his head to Selwyn. When he turns to Brienne, he hesitates. She can tell that her father’s attitude has put him off balance.

 

Brienne softens her expression, pushes the tension of the moment to the back of her mind. “I’ll join you shortly, Jaime.”

 

He smiles softly at her, a warmth and affection gracing his face that feels like a slap to her own. He takes her hand in his and gently raises it, pressing his lips against her knuckles. Brienne’s fingers tighten around his, the soft heat of his mouth like a brand against her cool skin. She doesn’t jerk away, but it’s a near thing; only Jaime’s eyes and the unspoken, ‘ _make it seem real,’_ stop her.

 

Brienne’s eyes follow Jaime until the door is shut gently behind him, leaving her alone with her father for the first time in nearly ten years. She glances over to find him regarding her with a look only a parent can bestow.

 

“So.” Selwyn settles back against his chair, his hands laid against his stomach. “My daughter has found herself a husband.”

 

Brienne flushes at his tone. “Father --”

 

“Imagine my surprise,” he interrupts her, “when the raven came with news of your impending arrival, a husband in tow whom you have never bothered to mention, and who possesses the most notorious reputation in all of Westeros. My daughter, apparently now a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, dragging home a vow-breaking, treasonous man from a house now completely annihilated save for one lecherous, drunken, traitorous brother.”

 

Brienne flinches, the blush darkening her cheeks even further. Her father is not cruel in his tone, not even truly judgmental. He’s concerned, confused, maybe aggravated, but not cruel. Brienne has experienced enough cruelty in her life to tell the difference. All the same, Brienne can feel that hated rush of tears to her eyes, the shame at her situation enveloping her. She is tired of crying, has cried more in the past two months than in the two decades prior, this pregnancy seemingly unraveling any hard-earned control over her more extreme emotions.

 

She opens her mouth to reply, but cannot find the words to explain the situation. Stupidly, what comes out of her mouth instead is, “I’m pregnant.”

 

The look of shock that crosses her father’s face would be comical if not for the current circumstance. “Did he--”

 

“No!” Brienne sits up straighter, leaning toward her father. “No.” It’s not quite the truth, but what he’s implying is also not quite the truth. The facts lie somewhere in the middle. She doesn’t believe Jaime meant to trifle with her, nor did she allow herself to be seduced by pretty words. In point of fact, Jaime couldn’t have been less adept at seduction short of becoming Tormund Giantsbane.

 

No, Brienne had entered into their relationship of her own free will. That it nearly ended with him dead beneath a heap of rubble, his bastard child swelling in her belly, doesn’t seem like needed information at this point.

 

“You read my letter.” Brienne takes a settling breath. “Jaime and I grew closer when he came to Winterfell to fight alongside the Stark forces. After the battle, it seemed foolish to ignore what we felt.” The half-truths were carefully selected. Sansa had read the letter before Brienne sent it, pointing out places where Brienne might falter once in person, gently guiding Brienne to a version of the truth that allowed her father to infer what he wanted. “The child is --” She pauses, glancing down at her stomach, still not noticeably different to anyone other than herself. “The child was unplanned. We certainly had no intention of bringing a child into the world in the middle of a war. But --”

 

Selwyn’s face shifts to something warmer, something familiar and paternal. “I’m only worried.” He sets his hand over her own and it eclipses hers entirely. “It’s not like you to act impulsively. No man ever caught your attention before. You seemed to despise them.”

 

“The feeling was mutual.”

 

“Be that as it may, to receive a raven after months with the news that not only was my only child married in a rush during the middle of a war, but that it was to a man who, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, was fighting for the opposing side --” Selwyn sighs deeply. “Tell me, what father wouldn’t be suspicious that something terrible had happened.”

 

Something terrible _did_ happen, but not what Selwyn believes. Brienne can’t bear to set her father against Jaime at the outset. She will carry the burden of the anger against him. It’s of her own making. Her own foolish belief that she might be able to have something purely for her own pleasure. The idea of telling her father that some heady mixture of lust and love and trust had overcome her better judgment is too uncomfortable to even contemplate.

 

No, it was better that he not know. That there be no barrier to his acceptance of Jaime as her husband and father of her child beyond what was already against him: vow breaking and laying with his own sister, fathering children on her as well.

 

“Well.” Selwyn leans back in his chair again, and finally, a smile breaks across his face, broad and shining. “I won’t lie, the idea of being a grandfather … I worried I would never get the chance, and I’m glad to be given the opportunity to spoil them.”

 

“It’s a surprise to me as well,” Brienne mumbles. “I’m still adjusting to the idea.”

 

“Yes, I suppose you would be.” With that, Selwyn pushes back from the table, standing and setting his hand against the crown of Brienne’s head. He strokes her hair, the way he used to when she was small and in need of comfort. “Get some rest. If I remember your mother’s pregnancies, you’ll need all you can get.”

 

\--

 

Brienne wants nothing more than to be by herself in her familiar bedchamber. She wants to curl underneath the heavy blankets, a warming stone at her feet and a fire crackling away. But, of course, she and Jaime have a love match, and as such the presumption of them sharing a bed means she won’t have privacy any time soon. That she is already pregnant would make a request of separate chambers an oddity, and Brienne is not inclined to invite any more questions than necessary.

 

She enters their chambers to find him struggling with the tie at his neck again. Brienne wonders briefly how he managed for all those years, yet suddenly finds himself incapable of undressing on his own. Perhaps it took him longer, or perhaps he had a squire, or perhaps he’s out of practice after their time together. Either way, she finds herself walking to him and brushing his hands aside. Her heart clenches at the familiarity of it, of night after night of helping him remove layer after layer of clothing. She doesn’t linger now, doesn’t let her knuckles stroke across the warm skin of his throat, doesn’t loosen the laces and help him pull the shirt over his head. She pulls the knot and steps back from him, facing away to undo her own laces, only nodding at his quiet thanks.

 

When she turns around once again, it’s to find Jaime already beneath the covers, his back to her. She slides in next to him and prays to all seven gods for sleep.

 

\--

 

Brienne awakens with a jolt, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, her hand reaching for the sword that is no longer a constant presence at her bedside. It takes her sleep-addled mind a moment to piece together what woke her. Jaime is mumbling at her side, vacillating between incoherent pleading and screams choked in his throat. Brienne is frozen for a moment, staring at him as his hands pull at the sheets, his feet restlessly kicking beneath blankets.

 

Finally, she can’t take it anymore and reaches out to him. “Jaime,” she whispers, lightly pushing on his shoulder. He doesn’t respond, something approaching a whimper coming from him as he presses his face into his pillow. “ _Jaime_.” She shakes him this time, wrapping her fingers around his arm.

 

Jaime gasps awake, eyes wide and frantic as he looks around the room before they catch hers. His face seems to calm somewhat, his chest rising and falling with deepening breaths as the tension slowly leeches from his muscles.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

“No.” Jaime shakes his head, immediately correcting to, “Yes.” He tugs his arm from her grip and slips out of bed, raking his hand through his hair, pulling at it before wiping the sweat from his face. He looks at her, and her breath catches at the wild desperation in his eyes. “I don’t know.”

 

Brienne knows she has a choice now. She can tell him she’s sorry and lie back down, let him work his own way through whatever it is that put that look in his eyes. But that’s not a legitimate option, not really. She sits upright, forcing herself to be relaxed and calm.

 

“What did you dream of?”

 

“ _You._ ”

 

Brienne’s jaw goes slack, her mouth opening in a soft ‘o’ of surprise. Whatever response she expected, it is not that he was dreaming of her. For a moment, she is strangely hurt, the idea that a dream of her was so horrifying as to drive him away from their bed, from her touch. She feels suddenly vulnerable. It must show on her face, because Jaime’s expression shifts from frenzied to that yearning he used to wear so plainly right before reaching for her.

 

“I dreamt --” He pauses, briefly closing his eyes and flinching, as if the dream was a physical wound. “I dreamt it was you.”

 

“That _what_ was me?”

 

“That you were the one I killed.”

 

The impact of those words is like slamming into solid ground after a hard shove.

 

“I could feel you.” Jaime shakes his head back and forth, as if he can forcibly remove the images. “I could hear you struggling for breath, see the way your face turned desperate and red and then sad. I could feel when your breath stopped.” The final words are barely more than a whisper. Jaime’s eyes are squeezed tightly shut.

 

Brienne wants to reach for him, to cradle his face in her hands like she once could. But she’s frozen in place, the weight of Jaime’s words pinning her to the bed. She knows that the dream is little more than a memory of what happened in the Red Keep, knows that his mind put her in his hands, made him kill her and their baby. It makes her sick. Not because she thinks he could do that to them, but because he ever had to do so to anyone, especially someone he loved.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, after the silence has stretched to an uncomfortable point. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

 

“No,” Brienne whispers, and even that sounds loud in her ears. “It’s fine. Do you --” She wraps her hands in the blanket still draped over her lap, gripping until her knuckles turn white. “Do you need to talk about what happened?”

 

“I can’t ask that of you.”

 

“You didn’t.” Brienne heaves herself to settle sit up against the pillows. “I offered.”

 

Jaime hesitates, still looking unsure.

 

“You should sit.” Brienne gestures to the cooling spot where he slept.

 

Jaime settles onto the bed, leaning back against his own pillows, his head thumping against the solid stone behind them. Brienne waits for him. She has been patient her entire life, has had to be. Women like her don’t get to demand.

 

When he finally begins to speak, it’s low and halting. He stares at his lap the entire time, flexing the fingers of his hand over and over.

 

“Bronn came to Winterfell.” Brienne resists the urge to question this, surprised that he didn’t mention it before. “He was sent by Cersei to kill me and Tyrion. He told us that he wouldn’t, if we would promise him something more than she did. Then he told us that he didn’t think Cersei stood a chance, not so long as Daenerys had her dragons.” He glances over at Brienne’s legs, seemingly unable to lift his eyes to her face. “When the raven was sent to Sansa, when I heard that Cersei had already killed one of the dragons...”

 

Jaime does look up at her then and she can see the deep well of pain in his eyes, so palpable she feels it in her own chest.

  
“I didn’t have a _choice_.” He says it like he’s pleading with her. Like he once again just needs her to understand. “I was the only one that could get close enough to Cersei. I couldn’t let her win. I thought she would destroy everyone and everything. She was _mad_. She had been mad for a while and I couldn’t see it, or wouldn’t let myself. I hardly know now.

 

“I found her in the Red Keep, in the tower, looking out over the soldiers fighting below. She had that look on her face, that small smile of satisfaction at the expense of others. When she turned and saw me, she was surprised. Maybe she was pleased. She said my name and I went to her, like I had so many times before. Then she stroked my cheek and said, ‘I knew you would come back to me.’ She was so sure, but there was something cold in her eyes, like I was just another thing she had conquered and owned. I pulled her to me and I wrapped my hand around her throat and choked her until she was gone.”

 

Jaime’s face crumples, a tear tracking down his cheek.

 

“Then the fire came,” Jaime continues. “I saw the dragon coming for the tower and ran. I just left her there. I know she was gone, but I left her body there to be burned.” It’s only then that Jaime looks away. “You know the rest. I was in shock that I was alive, then I look up and you’re there, and I thought maybe I had died. But then you _touched_ me.”

 

And punched him.

 

“Jaime.” Brienne waits until he looks at her again, the pain fading into something depleted and resigned, an edgy sort of complacence. “I _am_ sorry. You didn’t think there was another way.”

 

Jaime nods. “But I killed my sister, my lover, the mother of my children. I killed my unborn child. For nothing. And my one noble act was rendered moot by another Targaryen burning the city and its citizens as if they were nothing more than kindling for her madness.”

 

Brienne almost wishes he sounded bitter or angry or sad. Instead, he sounds detached, like he’s reached the limits of his ability to process the tumult of emotions. She has no idea what to say, how to even begin to reach him as lost as he is in the tangle of his pain.

 

“You deserve better than me. If I had been a better man --”

 

“I chose you.” 

 

“Would you have, if you’d known what was to come?”

 

She can’t say no. She won’t lie to him, not with the destruction lies cause still reverberating between them.

 

“I don’t know.” It’s startling to see something like relief in the set of his shoulders and mouth. She realizes he expected to be rejected. But it’s never been that easy between them. There have never been any simple answers. “I understand that you thought you were doing the right thing. I sympathize with your pain, and I am truly sorry for it. But you broke my trust.” She doesn’t say heart, but she thinks he hears it anyway.

 

“I thought if you hated me, it would be easier when I died.”

 

It’s on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she could never hate him. Even when she thinks she does, it’s so interwoven with a deeper love than she ever wanted to feel for anyone. But if she tells him that, if she gives in to that feeling, if she gives him that power over her again -- she can’t. She can’t let him that close, can’t give herself up to that potential pain. She doesn’t know how she’ll recover when it happens again.

 

“You were wrong.” It’s as close to an admission as she’s willing to give. His eyes search her face, trying to find something there, something to give him cause to hope. “We should sleep. Tomorrow will be busy.”

 

“Of course.”

 

She lies back down, curling in on herself and trying to calm her racing thoughts. This time, they’re facing each other. He closes his eyes first. She watches as his muscles slowly relax, his breathing deepens and the ever-present strain in every line of his face eases.

 

The weight of his confession rests heavy in her breast. She tries to imagine what she would have done in his place, if someone she loved her entire life went mad and she was the only one that could stop them. She wonders if it were Jaime, if she would have watched him burn the world around her, the idea of running him through with a sword or placing her hands around his neck too surreal to ever be believable. She closes her eyes and rolls over, hoping if she can’t see his familiar face it will keep her from reaching for him, doesn’t know if it would be to comfort him or herself.

 

It’s a long time before she falls back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, there will be no more cluster of migraines and the next chapter will be up fairly quickly. I think at the end of this and through the next chapter (which is already sketched out but would've made this chapter a MONSTER), you'll finally see a softening between Jaime and Brienne as they are finally away from King's Landing and war. Be patient with them. They're both traumatized, for different reasons, but traumatized nonetheless.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is my favorite chapter to date. We’re finally going to have something more than just painful angst! Yay! This chapter was originally supposed to go at the end of the previous chapter, but it is a monster on its own. 
> 
> I also wanted to say that the outpouring of support I have received for this story truly, truly means the world to me. It has been such an amazingly rewarding experience to know that you all are enjoying this little passion project of mine.

Brienne tugs at the blue silk sleeves of her dress. She hates it. She has always hated dresses, the way they seem to stretch to their breaking point against her broad shoulders, never quite nipping in enough to accentuate what little waist she has, her lack of breasts making everything all the more unflattering. The swelling of her breasts through these first weeks of pregnancy, while extremely noticeable to her, doesn’t seem to make much difference to the fit of her newly made dress. Not to mention, the softening of her abdomen has resulted in even less of a waist than she had before.

 

If not for her father, and for the sake of causing him no more embarrassment than necessary, she wouldn’t be in a dress. However, Brienne knows tonight will be difficult enough and that the expectation is that the future Evenstar will wear a dress befitting her role. She tugs one last time at the neckline, embroidered with gold suns and silver crescent moons.

 

“Blue is a good color on you.” Brienne whirls to find Jaime standing behind her, outfitted in a proper doublet of wine red velvet. She’s never seen him in such finery. It’s odd to see him with no armor, in clothing that is clean and new and sumptuous. “It goes well with your eyes.”

 

Once upon a time, she would be searching his words for mockery or teasing. Not now, though. Not after their weeks together.

 

“Thank you.” She gives him a cursory once-over. “You look well.”

 

Jaime smirks, an all-too-familiar quirk of satisfaction on his lips, as he walks to her. When he’s within arm’s reach, he holds out his hand, a velvet sack tied with gold rope hanging from his fingers. Brienne eyes him warily but takes the bag from him. It’s heavier than it looks. She pours its contents into her palm. It’s a delicate silver chain with a pendant. The pendant itself is a gold sun with a sapphire laden crescent moon tucked inside of it.

 

“I didn’t think you would want anything gaudy.” She looks up to meet his eyes and finds him uneasy. “I wasn’t sure if you had much in the way of jewels. I know you left home early, and--”

 

Brienne interrupts him. “It’s lovely.” Some of the frenetic energy seems to fade from him at her words.

 

“I would help you put it on, but --” He holds up his right arm, turning the golden hand one way and the other, and shrugs with a helpless goofy expression on his face.

 

She rolls her eyes at him. “I haven’t become incapable of putting a necklace around my own neck.” She latches the chain, letting the pendant drop into the hollow between her collarbones. Jaime lifts his true hand as if to touch it, but pulls back, thinking better of doing so without permission.

 

He lifts his eyes from the jewelry to meet her own. “Beautiful,” he says, the word barely audible even in the hush of their room.

 

Her breath catches in her chest, her heart pounding a queer rhythm. The look he gives her is all too plain and easy to interpret. He isn’t speaking of the necklace. She knows he means it, that he would never mock her to throw out empty compliments. It took her weeks to accept that he meant it when he brushed her hair from her cheek and told her she had the most astonishing eyes he’d ever seen. Or that when he trailed kisses from her jaw to her collarbone and murmured that her skin was perfect, he was almost speaking more to himself than her, and meant it all the more for that reason.   

 

Brienne looks away from that gaze. “We should go. I would imagine the feast has already begun.”

 

Jaime doesn’t reply, merely extends a bent arm for her to wrap her own arm around.

 

\--

 

The feast -- celebration -- is filled with people Brienne vaguely recognizes, the wealthier citizens of Tarth. There's not a one she can name at this point, after a decade away. Countless events have taken up the space in her mind formerly filled by these people, who only looked at Brienne to find her wanting. The looks cast her way by everyone, seeing Brienne of Tarth, Brienne the Beast, Brienne the Inadequate, on the arm of one of the most handsome, if not notorious, men in all of Westeros say more than words ever could. They think, ‘poor Jaime Lannister, disinherited, married to the ugliest maid in all of Westeros out of desperation and lack of choice.’

 

It stings the most that they aren’t wrong.

 

Brienne starts slightly when she feels Jaime’s hand rest over her own that’s in the crook of his elbow. He leans close enough to whisper in her ear, “Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.”

 

“I am no lion,” Brienne murmurs out of the corner of her mouth.

 

“You married a lion.” Jaime’s voice is teasing and light. “Marry a lion, become a lion.”

 

When she turns her head, it’s to find him with that unsettling polite veneer that he wears for the masses. It’s not Jaime. It’s Lord Lannister, even if the title no longer applies. It reminds her of a time when he too looked at her to only find fault. Jaime must feel her stare because he glances over at her, the facade slipping at whatever he finds in her expression.

 

“I’m sorry.” A furrow of concern creases the space between his brows. “I didn’t mean to offend you or remind you of --”

 

Brienne cuts him off with a sharp, “Not here.”

 

Jaime’s mouth tightens into a thin line before his face once more relaxes into the charming Jaime Lannister of old. Brienne tries to school her face into something at least pleasantly neutral. She nearly breathes an audible sigh of relief when they finally reach the longtable set upon the dais at the head of the Great Hall. Jaime escorts her to her chair, waiting until she is seated before taking the seat to her left.

 

The food has been carefully chosen so that Jaime can eat without issue. Despite her father’s wariness of him, Selwyn Tarth would never purposefully embarrass his son-in-law. Brienne wishes that she felt like eating, but it seems that if the pregnancy doesn’t plague her with nausea, the stress of once again being in front of a crowd of people who mock her freely will cause it. She picks at her food until the last course is finally taken away.

 

Her father stands from his place at the center of the long table. All eyes in the room turn to him, the din of the crowd fading into silence.

 

“Though I am sure by now you are all aware of the marriage of my daughter, Brienne, to Jaime Lannister, we have another happy announcement to make.” Selwyn’s voice fills the vast space, near echoing off the rafters. “We will soon be joined by the next heir to Evenfall.” At this announcement what sounds like a million whispers disperse through the crowd. Everyone is all raised eyebrows and shocked statements barely hidden behind hands. “Let us raise a toast to them both and to the blessing of a new life.”

 

The crowd obediently raises their goblets with a general call of good cheer. But the whispers continue. Brienne wishes she were anywhere else in the world. And then her father opens his mouth again.

 

“I believe this calls for a dance.” Brienne looks to him in shock, her heart nearly stopping in her chest. Selwyn looks to her and Jaime expectantly.

 

Brienne turns her desperate gaze to Jaime, but he merely stands and extends his hand to her, the golden one tucked at the small of his back. She begs him with her eyes to make some excuse. He smiles at her, a soft, small upturn at the corners of his mouth. It’s not a mocking smile, but one that is meant to ease her worries. She gives in -- the other option is mortification and scandal -- and places her hand in his.

 

Jaime leads her to the center of the floor.

 

“Try not to look as if I am leading you to the gallows,” he murmurs, circling so he is facing her. He places his golden hand at the small of her back, his left drawing her right one into the proper position.

 

“I don’t dance.” Brienne takes a deep breath, her ribs pushing at the seams of her bodice.

 

“You danced with Renly Baratheon.”

 

Brienne blushes and looks away from his face and over his shoulder.

 

“I was young,” she explains. “And, at the time, still shorter than him. We look ridiculous.”

 

“I believe I should be offended,” he says, though his tone is easy.

 

“I look ridiculous.”

 

Foolishly, Brienne feels the emotions rise from her breast to lodge in her throat. She has avoided just this situation for so long, the eyes of an entire room trained on her as she attempts something she isn’t capable of doing well.

 

“Brienne.” He waits until she meets his eyes. “Follow my lead.”

 

And that is all he says before the music begins and he guides her through the dance. He is effortless, graceful, moves like a man wholly confident in his own body. Brienne has never felt that without a sword in her hand.

 

Brienne flushes all over at the intimacy of the dance, at how close he pulls her, at the heat of him enveloping her. She wishes for nothing more than to flee, to pick up the heavy skirts of her dress and run from the stifling room, away from the stares and whispers and the feel of Jaime’s palm against her own, from the look in his eyes, as if she is the only thing in not just the room, but in the world.

 

It seems that the dance lasts forever and no time at all. When the music finally fades into silence, Jaime steps away from her, never letting go of her right hand. He shifts his grip until he’s holding her fingers, palm down. And then he bends and presses a kiss against her hand, his lips warm and soft, his hint of a beard scratching at the delicate skin. Jaime smiles then, broadly, truly and Brienne feels it like another embrace.

 

Finally, he stands straight again, placing her hand in the crook of his elbow once more. He leads her back to the table, Brienne still in a haze of overwhelming sensation. And for the first time in her life, so lost in her thoughts that she is wholly unaware of the people around her.

 

When Jaime halts abruptly, Brienne nearly stumbles. Awareness slowly filters back in, the noise of the room and the movement of bodies hitting her like a brick wall. She looks to Jaime confused as he leads her toward a small cluster of nearby young men. They’re laughing together, at least halfway to drunk, and oblivious to the approach of Brienne and Jaime.

 

“Jaime, what are you doing?” Brienne can feel a twinge of panic thrumming in her veins.

 

Jaime ignores her, continuing until they are standing very near one of the young men, his back turned to them. Jaime clears his throat. The men facing them startle, their eyes widening. The one nearest them whips around at  his friends’ expressions, blanching at the look he finds on Jaime’s face. Jaime’s smile is like the edge of Oathkeeper, sharp and terrifying.

 

“Gentleman.” Jaime’s voice is like nothing Brienne hasheard from him in years, a dark, coiling cut to it. The entire group of boys blanch at the sound.

 

“Lord Lannister,” the closest man greets him with a small, half-bow.

 

“Lord Tarth, actually,” Jaime corrects him his shoulders pressing back proudly. The sounds of it curls down Brienne’s spine. It still sounds so strange, and it coming from Jaime’s lips makes it all the more odd. “It seems you were all having a lively discussion.”

 

A sudden, creeping dread settles in Brienne’s gut, a sudden clarity of what must have happened coming over her.

 

“I -- I --” the nearest one stutters, the gray skin of his cheeks suddenly flooding red that spills down his neck.

 

“I believe I need to make something clear.” Jaime doesn’t even pause for the man to gather his thoughts. “I may be new to your island, but I am not a green young man. I spent the majority of my forty-two years navigating the courts of Westeros, from King’s Landing to Lannisport and back again. I am aware of how gossip travels in these circles.”

 

Brienne grips his arm with the hand still nestled into his elbow. She’s tempted to jerk him away, but she knows that even with the extra height she has over him, not even the gods themselves could move him from his current position. The fear is like a physical weight across her shoulders.

 

“You all seem to be operating under the misapprehension that your voices do not carry. I assure you, they do.” Jaime’s tone has shifted to pure, polite fury, his jaw tight with barely controlled anger. “I heard every word of what you said about your future Evenstar. Every gutless, spineless whisper from craven men who are gravely mistaken about the depths of their own wit.”

 

Jaime’s arm moves from her and her own drops to her side like a stone in a pond. Brienne is frozen in place, wishing he would stop talking, wondering what will come next. Jaime moves until he is nearly nose-to-nose with the victim of his ire.

 

“If I should ever hear another word from you or any of your ilk about my lady wife that is anything less than complimentary, I will make sure that you regret it for the rest of your days.” The young man tries to take a step away from Jaime, but Jaime has already curled his hand around the man’s shoulder. To an outsider, it would almost appear he was clapping him in good humor. “Is that clear?”

 

“Yes, my lord,” the young man stutters.

 

With a truly unnerving smile, Jaime steps back until he is arm-to-arm with Brienne once again.

 

“It would be best if this particular piece of advice spread as quickly as the poor japes do.”

 

“Yes, my lord,” the man repeats, his voice quavering still.

 

Jaime turns to face Brienne, offering his arm to her once again. “Milady?”

 

Brienne is too startled to even grimace at the address, twining her arm with his once again and allowing him to lead her back to the table. She glances up to find her father watching them with a raised brow and something that hints at a smile lurking within the white beard that covers his face.

 

Brienne takes her seat again in a daze. Jaime passes her a goblet of spiced wine and settles his hand over hers where it sits trembling on the table.

 

“Are you well?” Jaime asks. Brienne finds his face creased with genuine concern. “If you’re ill, I could make our excuses.”

 

“Why did you do that?” Brienne asks, almost numb from how overwhelming the unnameable feeling in her chest is. Jaime’s forehead creases in confusion. “Why did you say those things?”

 

“Are you angry with me?” Jaime still looks completely baffled at her reaction, searching her face as if trying to find the answer in the set of her mouth or tension in her jaw.

 

“No one has ever --” Brienne stops. Her heart is pounding a frantic rhythm in her chest. She feels like a rabbit caught in the sight of a fox, vulnerable and almost terrified of the depths his defense of her seems to have touched within her. “No one has ever defended me in that way.”

 

Jaime’s face goes slack with surprise..

 

“Surely, your father --”

 

“Words are wind.” Brienne explains, interrupting him. “That is what my father told me after my first appearance at one of these celebrations, when he found me crying in my room afterward. ‘Words are wind, daughter. You must let them breeze past you.’”

 

The indignation that pours over Jaime’s face only causes her pulse to thump more heavily.

 

“No one will ever speak a word against you again.” He says it like a vow. “Not within my hearing, not if they want to remain on this island or be welcomed at any court in the seven kingdoms.”

 

“Jaime,” Brienne says helplessly, looking at him with something akin to wonder.

 

“I promise it, milady.”

 

Brienne’s mouth ticks up in a shadow of a smile before she can help it.

 

“I am no lady.”

 

Jaime stares at her for such a pause that worry begins to creep in.

 

“You are my lady,” he finally says, voice low and vehement, nearly a rasp. It catches in Brienne’s chest.  “I may be the future Lord Tarth and not Lord Lannister, but I am as much a lion as I ever was and I will protect what is mine. You and our child are my responsibility now and I will not shirk my duties. Not ever.”

 

Brienne closes her eyes and turns her head away from him, trying to calm the wild sort of pleasure that fills her.

 

“Thank you.” It’s barely more than a whisper, almost lost in the noise of the ongoing celebration.

 

“It’s not something you should thank me for.” Jaime’s voice is plain, factual, as if telling her that the sky is blue and fire is hot. “I don’t do it for your thanks, I do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

 

And that, the the way he says it as if she should take it for granted that someone would defend her against the ugly words and judgments that have followed her entire life, that is what nearly brings her to tears. No one has ever looked beyond her outward appearance of brutal strength, no one has ever thought to defend her against the one thing she cannot beat back with sword and muscle. Not until now. It makes her feel vulnerable and protected, yet somehow it strengthens her to face the crowds, knowing that she won’t be left alone, tongue-tied and incapable of denying the truth of their taunts.

 

She doesn’t even consciously make the decision, but her hand moves to his and squeezes it, her grip tight, likely crushing. When she opens her eyes, it’s to find Jaime looking at her with concern and -- concern and affection. She can’t term it love, not yet, not in this moment. She glances away from Jaime to find her father watching them, a softness on his face that makes her blush furiously.

 

Brienne jerks her hand away from Jaime’s, feeling as if she has been caught doing something improper. A furrow appears between Jaime’s eyebrows and he looks to the side. She knows he sees her father staring at them, his face going a little sour, and she can see him retreat, the warmth and openness fading away. She realizes with a jolt that he thinks she’s ashamed of having touched him.

 

“Jaime,” she says softly.

 

He doesn’t look at her and she can’t push too much, not in front of her father and the crowd. Instead, she takes a sip of the overly sweet wine and swallows past the lump in her throat.

 

\--

 

The rest of the feast passes with nothing more than courtesies spoken between them and Brienne can’t bring herself to attempt an explanation to Jaime of her sudden retreat. But the look on Selwyn’s face spoke of his hopes for her being fulfilled, the implication that perhaps his fears were for naught and Brienne had truly found happiness, and the guilt she feels at her deception settles heavy in her bones.

 

When they are finally back in their bedchamber, the only source of light the crackling fire, Brienne watches Jaime warily as he silently goes through his nightly routine. She helps him with the knots and laces of his more formal clothing, his fingers unpracticed with the new garments.

 

Brienne lingers for just a moment with her fingers still twined with the laces of his tunic.

 

“Will you help me loosen the laces of my dress?” She braces herself and looks from his neck to his face to find that reserved look still in his eyes. He doesn’t respond except to nod. She turns her back to him, reaching to undo the knot at the base of her spine. There’s a beat before she feels his fingers curling into the criss-crossing bits of silk and tugging. She could weep with relief as the confining bodice finally loosens and she can take a proper breath again. “Thank you.”

 

He still says nothing, simply takes a step away. For a brief moment, Brienne wants to punch him again. At least then he would likely make a noise. She turns to find him pulling his shirt over his head. She blushes as her eyes trace the muscles of his back, the way they tighten and relax with each movement.

 

“Jaime.” He faces her and it’s all Brienne can do to keep her eyes on his face and not on the way the firelight reflects off of his chest and abdomen. “I didn’t pull away from you for the reason you think. My father was looking at me.”

 

“Does Selwyn disapprove of a married couple touching hands in front of others?” Jaime’s tone is harsh and biting. “I didn’t realize that Tarth was such a prudish place.”

 

She could strangle him and not feel an ounce of remorse.

 

“I don’t lie to my father, not like this. I hate deceiving him about something so -- so monumental.” Jaime’s expression finally softens a bit, the angry glint in his eyes fading. “It feels like a cut when he looks at us and thinks that we married for all of the right reasons. He thinks we married for love.”

 

“I did.” Brienne’s eyes widen at the admission, all the breath leaving her lungs at once. She can’t find the words to respond, has no idea what one says to such a statement. “I know you didn’t, but I did.”

 

“I --” Brienne begins unsure of what she could possibly say to him, but Jaime cuts her off by raising his hand.

 

“Please don’t.” His tone is almost pleading. “I understand but I needed you to know. I’ve implied it. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that you already knew. But I should have said it before, so I’m saying it now.”

 

Brienne knows what before means, that he means before they married, even before he left her standing in the courtyard at Winterfell. Jaime finally looks away from her. Brienne sucks in a deep breath as if she were held captive by his stare. Jaime pulls back the blankets and slides into bed. He settles and turns his back from where she still stands.

 

“It’s been a long evening.” His voice is muffled by the pillow and distance. “I believe sleep is in order for both of us.”

 

Brienne peels off the rest of her dress, leaving her in just a shift. She carefully places the dress over a nearby settee and slides in beside Jaime. For the first time in months, she finds herself longing to curl herself around him, to feel the solid comforting warmth of his back against her. She buries her face in her pillow for a moment, then turns her back to him.


	5. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's Midnight Sun. 
> 
> Also known as: the story up til now as seen through Jaime's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea why this happened. I originally intended it to be a series of interconnected, but quite short vignettes, giving some insight into Jaime's emotions and thought process during the story to help bridge the gap between this past chapter and the next act of the story, which will skip ahead in time a bit. 
> 
> Then I started it and couldn't stop it and suddenly it was 8700 words and is effectively like that time Stephenie Meyer thought it would be an excellent idea to write Twilight from Edward's POV. Except, I'm publishing this chapter.
> 
> This is heinously self-indulgent and truly only serves the purpose of allowing people, myself included, an insight into Jaime and his trauma. 
> 
> This won't represent a shift in the POV of the main story. It will still remain third person limited on Brienne. But, if people don't hate this, it's entire possible that there will be Jaime POV interludes every time there needs to be a time hop.
> 
> Is this iffy (at best) story craft? SURE! But I wrote 8700 words in about 12 hours, so someone should read it!

 

**Interlude**

Jaime leaves Brienne standing in the courtyard at Winterfell. He rides as if there is fire nipping at his heels, knowing that if he looks back at her, if he sees her face he won’t be able to do this. He won’t be able to do what he needs to do. When he’s far enough from Winterfell that he no longers sees the faded glow of torches and fires reflecting off the windows, he pulls his mouth up and all but stumbles to the ground before vomiting into the nearest patch of dead grass.

 

He’s never before had a weak stomach, but the pain of leaving Brienne without telling her how much he  loves her is more than he can handle. He’s going to die, he knows this. He’s always known that he’s going to die with Cersei, that they entered the world together and will go out of it together. The piece he hadn’t counted on was that he would be the reason.

 

\--

 

He finds Cersei in the tower of the Red Keep, a glass of wine in hand and a smirk on her lips. He’s always known that she relishes in other people’s pain, that nothing brings her more pleasure than the submission of others to her power. That he was her greatest conquest is the part that stings the most, the bit that makes him feel like the most foolish man in the world. It’s the part that makes him truly contemptible.

 

She senses his presence and turns, something shining in her eyes when they see him. He goes to her, as if he is drawn to her, as he has always gone to her. She smiles broader at him and none of it is real.

 

“You came back to me.” Cersei cups his cheeks and it takes all he has not to jerk away from her soft palms, so unlike the rough calluses of Brienne’s own. “I knew you would come back to me.”

 

That’s when he knows. He was always something for her to win. He is nothing more than a prize, another jewel in her collection. Her greatest victory is complete control over her lover and brother.

 

He wishes he could hate her.

 

But he loves her still. Perhaps not in the same manner, not in the open, gentle, _full_ way he feels with Brienne. He has to wonder if he ever had that love with Cersei. He knows now that what he felt for Cersei was a dark, twisted, suffocating thing that ruled his entire existence. He can’t respect the person it made him, the things he did in the name of that love. But he loved her and he loves her, and it runs through his body, ravaging him like a disease.

 

Cersei presses against him, her back curving as she leans up and kisses him. It’s wrong. It’s so very wrong. She tastes of wine and cruelty, the hard line of her teeth cutting into his lips. He does his best, he tries to kiss her as he used to, with the need and lust and obsession he felt. He must not do a convincing job. She draws away from him. Her eyes narrow, searching for an answer.

 

She opens his mouth to ask him something. He interrupts her by trailing the back of his fingers along her cheekbone and down along her jaw. Then her wraps that hand around her neck, moving his golden hand to hold her place, to press the delicate bones of her throat against his palm.

 

Jaime expects desperation. He expects her to look sad, devastated and confused by his betrayal. Instead, she glares at him with rage, pure unadulterated hatred pours from her as she struggles against his grip. Her mouth opens on a furious scream that can’t escape past the pressure of his hand.

 

Then she goes limp, slumping against him. He lowers her to the ground, checking that the pulse in her neck has stopped. He bows his head. He thinks he should cry, but there’s nothing but an emptiness where the emotion should be.

 

When he lifts his head, eyes staring ahead, he sees Daenerys Targaryen bearing down on the back of her dragon, heading straight toward the tower. He understands with a sudden clarity what her next move is.

 

Jaime runs. He runs for his life, bits of ceiling raining down on him, cutting at any exposed skin. He breathes in the scent of fire and smoke and the dust of a crumbling building. He finally stumbles out into the glaring sunlight of King’s Landing to a city in ruins, the battle seemingly over now that Daenerys has burnt the Red Keep and countless other buildings. The streets are littered with bleeding men, their cries of agony a maelstrom, and the acrid stench of burnt flesh.

 

Then he looks up and there she is. Like a lighthouse in the storm, shining and bright and safe. She walks to him and cups his face, thumbing at his cheekbones, and the rough feel of calluses sends relief and comfort throughout his entire body. It’s as if he can no longer feel the pain, can no longer concentrate on the horror around them. There’s only Brienne, tall and powerful and wonderful.

 

He smiles when she asks, “Are you okay?’

 

“Yes.”

 

He wants to lean in and kiss her, but he’s covered in dirt and soot and the feeling of Cersei’s lips.

 

“Good.”

 

Then she punches him square in the face. He stands confused, his nose a bleeding agony. She looks over her shoulder as she stalks away from him. “I’m pregnant.”

 

The death of his sister, of their _child_ , at his hands, should have been the turning point, the crux of his existence. Instead, he finds himself staring after the woman he never thought he would see again, and yet another bastard he’s sired growing within her. _That’s_ when his whole world shifts sideways.

  


\--

 

When Jaime asks Brienne to marry him, it’s not what he wanted. It’s not how he thought about it. In Winterfell, lying beside Brienne in her bed -- their bed -- her face turned toward him and alight with the warmth of firelight and love, that’s when he thought about how he would ask her. When the war was over, when they were alive and all they had was time, he would ask her, he would tell her how deeply he loved her.

 

Even now, he wants to tell her. He wants her to know that he never knew love could make you feel lighter, that it could feel like the comfort of home, soft and welcoming. But she’s so angry. She vibrates with a righteous fury she’s more than entitled to.

 

He knows now how badly he botched this. It’s easy to forget in desperate moments that not everyone is a Lannister, that not everyone swings to hurt every time and that forgiveness in the next breath is expected.

 

“Have you lost your mind?”

 

She’s wide-eyed, aghast at the presumption of it in the face of her dismissals.

 

“I have sired five bastards.” His gut twists, bile rising in his throat. He’s a miserable excuse for a knight, for a man.  “Three of my children are dead. I failed to protect them. I wasn’t allowed to protect them, not as a father should. The fourth died in its mother’s womb.” But it’s not quite as simple as that. The blood of that child is on his hands in a way he will never be able to deny. “This child, _our_ child, is my chance to be the father I should have been.”

 

He knows that this child is not redemption. He would never put that responsibility on an innocent babe. But it is his chance to do the right thing for once in his damn life. Something right and true and something that won’t leave the blood of more people on his hands, not if he can do anything to prevent it.

 

“You’ll forgive me if I find it difficult to trust your word,” Brienne says.

 

And oh, that hits a bruise bone deep. He always tried with Cersei; the desire to hold his children still rests like a spectre in the depths of him. The sight of his children, bloody and screaming, red with anger at being expelled from the warm safety of the womb into a bright unforgiving world, it always left him with a visceral need to comfort them. As Brienne stands there, cold and reserved, the threat of another child of his being withheld, of being treated like a distant friend at best, awakens a reserve of cold fury he has not felt in an age.

 

“Where will you go now?” he asks.

 

He only half listens as she explains her plans to return to Tarth. He doesn’t know if she’s willfully misunderstanding the edge in his tone, or if she simply refuses to respond.

 

“And what will the people of Tarth have to say,” he interjects harshly, “when the only heir to the Evenstar comes home, a soldier whose bravery was proven in battle, heavily pregnant by the very knight who gave her the title?”

 

He watches as she blanches, flinching away from him, away from the truth of his statement, harsh though it may be. The emotions flood her face, the pain and anger and hurt and fear. The fear is what penetrates his own fury and hurt.

 

“I know you don’t want to marry me.” It’s difficult to say the words. He knows that she might have, before he set fire to what they had and fled before he could see the ashes that remained. “I know you don’t trust me. I know that you may never forgive me. But please, don’t take your anger out on me when a marriage in name only will protect not only you, but also our child from the censure of the whole of Westeros.”

 

He watches as her jaw tightens, a resolve settling over her in the squaring of her shoulders and the deep breath she draws. He braces himself, a nervous tingling engulfing him.

 

“All right. I will marry you.”

 

The relief is a rush like no other and though he’s terrified of the answer, he has to ask. “And will you let me be a father to the child?”

 

The wait for her answer is an agony. He is so drained. From leaving her, to his hand around Cersei’s neck, knowing there was no other way, realizing it changed absolutely nothing with the madness of Daenerys drowning every just act he’d ever performed.

 

“We will be married, everyone will know you are the child’s father. I could hardly prevent it, even if I wished to.”

 

It’s not the answer he wants, not precisely, with the soft, resigned sadness of her voice. But it is something. He knows Brienne well enough to know she is always true to her word.

 

It’s enough to allow him a flicker of hope.

 

\--

 

Jaime can’t help but feel that he’s performing in some farcical version of the life he envisioned. Brienne should be radiant as she makes her way to him, her fur-lined cloak draped over her shoulders in place of the maiden cloak she should be wearing. Instead, she looks as if she might bolt at any moment, or, even worse, lose her supper all over the walkway.

 

When she finally stops before him in all her towering glory, her face is pale, her lips nearly bloodless and tense. He longs to comfort her, to stroke her cheek and tell her everything will be fine. That he’ll make it fine if it’s the last thing he manages in this world. But he knows if he touches her without permission, without necessity, it will be anything but a comfort to her.

 

He takes her hand when it’s time to say his vows, holds her fingers firmly.

 

“I am hers and she is mine. From this day, until the end of my days.”

 

He wishes she would meet his eyes.

 

\--

 

Brienne manages to secure a private cabin for their journey to Tarth. The excuse is easy enough for her. She is plagued by sickness. Jaime recognizes it all too well. Cersei was sick for the first three months of every pregnancy. It was always the first clue that she was with child once again. However, Brienne convinces the ship that she is worried it is a stomach ailment and she would feel best in the darkened cabin below deck. Alone, so as to rest more soundly.

 

He asks every day how she is faring, and every day he’s told again that she is unable to keep much of her meals down. Jaime decides enough is enough. He wanders to the kitchens and with a bit of the smile that gets him nearly everything he wants, he obtains some finely sliced ginger root.

 

When he taps on the door to her cabin, he’s not even sure she’ll answer. She’s been a recluse the entire trip.

 

She looks wan when she opens the door, her face pale and drawn.

 

“May I come in?”

 

He can see that she hesitates. He knows that look all too well, the one that says she wants something, but wishes she didn’t. He’s seen it directed at himself so many times it almost feels like an old friend.

 

“I’ve brought you something.” Jaime takes the small package from his pocket and holds it out to her. “It’s ginger root. It helps with the nausea. It was the only thing that seemed to settle --”

 

He stops short, a sudden fear and anxiety pouring through him. He hasn’t spoken to her of him and Cersei, not in years, not as more than a barb meant to rile her. He hasn’t told her of the torture it was to finally tear himself away from her. That it felt like being flayed by a million tiny cuts, that he still doesn’t understand how he managed to ride away from her, from his child. Even knowing it was the right thing, even though he could barely stand the sight of her, her presence at his side was such a given, such a part of his every day. His every vision of the future was him by Cersei’s side. Abandoning that felt like abandoning everything he’d ever known of himself.

 

“You can say her name. It’s not as if I don’t know.”

 

Her tone stings like a slap across the face.

 

“It was the only thing that calmed Cersei’s stomach during her pregnancies.” It’s not as hard to say as he imagined it would be, bringing Cersei into the discussion, allowing the truth of their relationship to hang in the air. Brienne doesn’t seem inclined to respond, simply looks at him as if searching for something, searching for a sign that he still misses Cersei, that he wishes she was Cersei instead. “Fresh air might also help. You’ve been holed up in here since we set sail. Would you walk with me around the deck?”

 

Brienne finally looks away from him and to the package she’s still holding. She unwraps it carefully, certain not to let the contents spill. She gently places a sliver on her tongue. Her eyes close immediately, a simple pleasure falling over her features. He couldn’t look away from her on pain of death in this moment. It’s the first time he’s seen her without tension tightening her every muscle. He watches as she hesitates, mouth working its way around whatever she’s about to say.

 

“I would appreciate your assistance in a walk around the deck. I’ve been unsteady on my feet. It would be a shame for me to tip overboard when I am finally on my way home. My father is expecting me.”

 

It’s the closest he’s ever seen Brienne to babbling and it makes his chest feel a little looser.

 

“Of course. Ask me for whatever you need and I will do my best to provide.”

 

The look on her face is sad, hurt maybe, before she looks away from him. She turns to leave and for a moment he’s frightened he ruined it all. But then she glances back at him over her shoulder and he sees the invitation in the look.

 

He follows.

 

\--

 

Brienne’s father is an imposing man, to put it as mildly as possible. Where not even The Hound made Brienne seem small, somehow Selwyn does. Jaime can’t help the twist of jealousy at the way he wraps her in his hug, lifting her off her feet, the way she can bury face into his chest as he holds her and the way she falls into it as easy as breathing.

 

Selwyn doesn’t like him. That becomes rapidly obvious over the most uncomfortable dinner of Jaime’s life, and he participated in countless Lannister family dinners.

 

He tries, smiling easily, sharing his funniest anecdotes about his life to this point, carefully avoiding the last decade of pain and strife. It doesn’t work for a moment. He’s lucky if Selwyn sends a single word answer his way.

 

Then he’s summarily dismissed to follow a servant to the bedchamber he’s to share with Brienne. It sends his heart into a queer rhythm.

 

There’s already a fire crackling when he enters. The room is large and impersonal, clearly outfitted in haste once Brienne’s raven had arrived with news of their marriage. He freezes when he sees Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail mounted above the mantel over the fireplace, their blades crossed. It hits him like an unexpected blow to the back.

 

They have no reason to sleep with the swords at their sides, not anymore. There’s no reason to reach for their armor in the morning. Those items can remain as relics of a harsher time, but they have no place in their current day-to-day. He is no longer a knight. He left his suit of Lannister armor in King’s Landing and his Northern armor at Winterfell when he rode away. Brienne hasn’t worn hers since they left King’s Landing for Tarth, though he sees it in the corner next to the armoire, the light from the flames flickering over the layered plates.

 

Suddenly, the tie at his neck is suffocating. He feels as if he can’t quite get a full breath into his lungs. He struggles with the loops and knot at his neck, desperately jerking at it and only making the knot tangle up even more.

 

It’s been an age since Jaime felt true anger and loss when it comes to his missing hand. When he had a squire to help, it especially didn’t seem like such an imposition. And then he’d had Brienne, had her sure fingers undressing him every night with a delicacy and care no one had shown him. Possibly ever.

 

Jaime is closer to searching for a knife to just cut through the damned strings when the creaking of the door startles him. The sight of Brienne in the doorway, lit in the warmth of flame, so like their nights in Winterfell, makes him long for her so badly it’s as if there’s a hook in his gut jerking him to her.

 

She strides across the room to him, gently brushing his hands away from his neck. It takes her no time at all to undo the tangle he’s made, her practiced fingers untying it quickly and just as quickly she pulls away from him. There’s no bashful smile, no delicate brush of knuckles against his hammering pulse.

 

“Thank you.”

 

She doesn’t say anything, merely nods and unlaces her own tunic, her back to him the entire time.

 

\--

 

_Brienne stares up at him. He’s straddling her, both of his hands wrapped around the long, pale column of her throat. Her swollen abdomen presses against his own, their child kicking in distress as the breath is squeezed from its mother._

 

_Brienne gasps for air, struggles to draw it past where his grip cuts it off. She turns red, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, a sadness and resignation that tears at him._

 

_“Please,” she mouths at him, no sound able to escape._

 

_And then nothing._

 

He jolts awake, heart pounding, sweat coating his entire body, a scream lodged in his throat. There’s a hand wrapped around his arm, gripping him tightly. It’s Brienne, hair tousled from sleep, curling gently over her forehead. Her face is soft, worried, as she asks him, “Are you okay?”

 

It slams into him again, the memory of his hands around her throat, choking the life from her and suddenly her touch feels like an accusation. He stumbles from the bed, frantically wiping the sweat from his face.

 

“Are you all right?”

 

Brienne’s voice is gentle, worried and soothing all at once.

 

“No.” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. “Yes,” he tries to correct; he doesn’t want to have to share the truth of his twisted mind. He looks at her and the concern writ across her features is as much an accusation as the harshest charges that have been laid at his feet. “I don’t know.”

 

He watches the debate flutter across her face, the struggle all too plain to him after all this time.

 

“What did you dream of?”

 

“You.”

 

It leaves him like it’s been punched from him, the purging of an overwhelming burst of pain.

 

Hurt washes over her features, settling in the tightness around her eyes. A different stress from the anger, different from sadness. He doesn’t know when he came to know every minute expression she has, when he learned the difference in the way they pull at her features. If there was any doubt, her eyes speak clearly, have always told him the words she couldn’t find.

 

“I dreamt --” He stops, the words lodging in his throat, the horror of it overwhelming. “I dreamt it was you.”

 

“That what was me?”

 

He won’t look away from eyes, won’t be that craven.

 

“That you were the one I killed.”

 

It’s the first time he’s even acknowledged aloud what happened the last time he saw Cersei. Brienne looks as if he punched her in the gut.

 

“I could feel you. I could hear you struggling for breath, see the way your face turned desperate and red and then sad. I could feel when your breath stopped.” She’s staring at him, horrified and sick at his words. He doesn’t know whether it’s at the idea of him doing that to her, to their child, or if it’s the fact that he did it to another woman he professed to love. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

 

“No. It’s fine. Do you --” He watches her brace herself, the tightening of the strong muscles in her arms. “Do you need to talk about what happened?”

 

“I can’t ask that of you.”

 

“You didn’t.” Brienne sits up and settles against the pillows. “I offered.”

 

Jaime hesitates, doesn’t want to imagine the look on her face when he shares the darkness in his soul, his most violent act. He’s cut so many men down in battle that they’re just a sea of vague faces and viscera. But wrapping his hands around the mother of his children, the woman he loved his entire life, choking the life from her -- even if it seemed like the only way, even if he knew at his core that she was mad, evil, it’s a mark on his soul that none of the gods or men should ever forgive.

 

“You should sit.”

 

He sits hesitantly, facing the fireplace, body turned away from her.

 

He tells her everything. He explains what he did and how it felt and when he knew it was all for naught as Daenerys bore down them in the tower, the helplessness of knowing there was nothing more he could do. The tears surprise even him. He can’t remember the last time he cried, and he’s been so unable to process what he did to Cersei to this point, that the emotions pouring out of him are even more surprising than the kindness Brienne shows him.

 

“Jaime.” He finally brings himself to look Brienne in the eye again. “I _am_ sorry. You didn’t think there was another way.”

 

It would bring him to his knees if he were not already seated.

 

“But I killed my sister, my lover, the mother of my children. I killed my unborn child. For nothing. And my one noble act was rendered moot by another Targaryen burning the city and its citizens as if they were nothing more than kindling for her madness. You deserve better than me. If I had been a better man --”

 

“I chose you.”

 

It feels like absolution.

 

But he can’t stop himself from pressing. He needs to know. The separation between them has felt insurmountable. He meant every word of his vows. He will be whatever she needs for as long as she will allow him. He will love her in the very marrow of his bones until the day he dies. The feeling is as much a part of him as his very own heart. But he needs to know if there’s even a shred of a chance to have what they once did.

 

“Would you have, if you’d known what was to come?”

 

He braces himself for the rejection. He expects it. He’s more than earned it.

 

“I don’t know.” The relief that spreads through him is enough to make him light-headed. He feels like his chest has broken open, spilling the anguish and allowing that effervescent hope take up residence. “I understand that you thought you were doing the right thing. I sympathize with your pain, and I am truly sorry for it. But you broke my trust.”

 

He broke more than that. Even if neither of them can speak the words into existence yet. If all he broke was her trust, they wouldn’t find themselves in this bed with the weight of his choices between them and growing within her.

 

“I thought if you hated me, it would be easier when I died.”

 

She stares at him for a beat and he can see a lifetime’s worth of struggle in the deep blue of her eyes.

 

“You were wrong.”

 

It is simply stated and all the more painful for it. He’s convinced himself that his gravest mistake was his relationship with Cersei. The way that relationship shaped his entire existence for the whole of his life. The children they brought into the world, all dead, one as cruel as any man that ever lived, and two who never knew what the love of a parent should be. He failed so many times up to this moment. But knowing that his one attempt, that the only way he could imagine softening the blow for Brienne as he rode away to certain death with another woman, would never have helped, makes the past mistakes a brand on his soul.

 

“We should sleep. Tomorrow will be busy.”

 

“Of course.”

 

He watches until the taut muscles of her back relax, until her breathing smooths out with deep sleep. He misses the warmth of her bare skin against his, the comfort he took in her strong and solid weight against him. Most of all, he misses waking with her curled around him, arm around his waist, her breath hot and damp against the nap of his neck, legs tangled up with his. No one had ever held him like that, like he was the one in need of protection or comfort, not until Brienne, and the absence of that embrace has left him unmoored, floating in an ocean of doubt.

 

\--

 

Jaime is momentarily stunned in the doorway of their chambers. Brienne is in front of a mirror, yanking and tugging at the deep blue silk of her gown. She seems as if she’s on the verge of rending the entire thing at the seams and throwing it into the corner. He can tell she’s frustrated and uncomfortable and that only a portion of that is truly physical. She’s marvelous in these moments, raw and unreserved without the presence of others.

 

“Blue is a good color on you.” She startles and whirls around, impossibly blue eyes widening at the sight of him. “It goes well with your eyes.”

 

He can tell it hits her, can see the catch of her breath in her chest.

 

“Thank you.” Her voice is a thin, reedy thing. “You look well.”

 

He almost laughs at the dispassionate, rote response.

 

There’s an uneasy tension to her as he walks into the room, drawing closer. The bag is heavy in his hand as he holds it out for her to take. He hopes she can’t see the fine tremor of fear he feels. The necklace was an impulse, one born of a desire to take advantage of their current status in a way he was never able to in the past. She takes the bag from him, eyeing him warily before she dumps its contents into her waiting palm.

 

Jaime carefully watches her face; it’s strangely blank.

 

“I didn’t think you would want anything gaudy.” She looks from the necklace to his face. He shifts. Uncertainty and embarrassment are not emotions he is accustomed to, and he certainly doesn’t relish them. “I wasn’t sure if you had much in the way of jewels. I know you left home early, and--”

 

“It’s lovely.”

 

He deflates. His shoulders must have been around his ears for as far as he can feel them fall as the tension bleeds out of him.

 

“I would help you put it on, but --” He lifts his gold hand and waves it around like the idiotic fool of a man he is.

 

Brienne rolls her eyes and it’s almost as much a prize as a smile would be. “I haven’t become incapable of putting a necklace around my own neck.”

 

The pendant, a golden sun with a sapphire-encrusted crescent resting in the center of it, nestles in the hollow between her collarbones. The skin there is exposed more than it normally would be. It’s a creamy, soft, unblemished expanse that only serves to remind him of the number of times he memorized it with his own lips and teeth and tongue.

 

He finally lifts his eyes from her neck to her face. “Beautiful.”

 

The word slips out before he’s even conscious of having thought it. It’s only a fact for him. Her face is so dear to him. He doesn’t know how anyone could look at her and find her homely or ugly. The idea that he ever felt that way seems as if it must have been a stranger inhabiting his body and mind. Her eyes gleam with surprise, the breathless parting of her lips, the slight tremor of her chin that speaks of any strong emotion she can’t quite contain. He could look at her and never grow tired. He could gaze at her every day and still hunger for her.

 

Brienne looks away from him.

 

“We should go. I would imagine the feast has already begun.”

 

He offers his arm. It’s only when she cautiously places her hand in the crook of his elbow, that he realizes it’s the first time she’s touched him in months of her own accord. It feels monumental in a way a simple press of a palm shouldn’t.

 

\--

 

Brienne tenses the moment they step into the Great Hall. He’s never seen the expression on her face, like a rabbit caught in a snare, desperate to pull away and be anywhere else.

 

He leans against her, tilting his head up until his lips are nearly against the delicate shell of her ear.

 

“Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.”

 

It’s a phrase he heard a million times over his life. Later, it was always what his father would say when he could see Jaime struggling with the war between his own compass and what was his duty. But early in life, it was what his mother whispered in his ear as she cradled him following a particularly brutal encounter with one of the other boys in the training yard. Even as his father twisted the words as an attack in his adulthood, he can still remember the warmth of his mother’s embrace and the soothing words whispered into his hair.

 

“I am no lion.”

 

It lodges somewhere near his heart like a bolt. Of course, he forgets himself. Their marriage is one in name only for her. She still doesn’t view them as one flesh, two halves of one whole joined finally.

 

“You married a lion.” Jaime affects a playful tone, pressing the hurt down into the depths of his stomach. The face he used to survive for twenty-five years after being named the Kingslayer slips over him as easily as breathing. “Marry a lion, become a lion.”

 

She stares at him for a long moment as they continue through the throng of people. When he turns to catch her eye finally, it’s to find her with a look dancing around the edges of something close to distaste. It’s only then that it occurs to him there may be another reason she doesn’t want to consider herself a lion, why she doesn’t want to think of him as a lion either.

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you or remind you of --”

 

She sharply looks away from him, facing forward, her face closing off into nothingness.

 

“Not here.” Her tone cuts like a knife.

 

\--

 

When Selwyn announces a dance, Jaime raises with the grace befitting the once-heir to Casterly Rock. Brienne looks at him, a frantic pleading in her gaze. He smiles at her, a smile that he hopes conveys that she has nothing to worry about. He will not lead her into mortification. He will shield her with all that he is. She will survive this. She will triumph.

 

She doesn’t look much easier when she finally places her hand in his own. He leads her past the staring eyes; the quiet whispers at the back of the room have no meaning with her at his side, her hot palm held in his own. In the center of the room, he circles to face her. She still looks as if she would rather die than dance with him.

 

“I don’t dance.”

 

He tilts his head at her, a look that says he knows better.

“You danced with Renly Baratheon.”

Brienne blushes and looks away, her eyes trained over his shoulder and unfocused.

“I was young. And, at the time, still shorter than him. We look ridiculous.”

“I believe I should be offended.”

 

He tries to distract her with an easy sort of flirtation, something that will take her mind off of the eyes of the crowd, or at the very least cause her to glare at him and his presumptions.

“ _I_ look ridiculous.”

 

That settles in his gut like a brick. He’s reminded of the Brienne he first met. The prickly, defensive woman that shielded herself behind anger and muscle. He thinks of her now, the delicate, bruised soul she slowly revealed to him during their time together. It firms something within him, sinks into every muscle of his body.

 

“Brienne.” He waits until she catches his eye once more, and he can see the faint fear heavy with the memories of a lifetime of mockery. “Follow my lead.”

 

There’s only a beat where he can see the awakening understanding in her eyes before the music begins and he sweeps her along with him. They can’t possibly look ridiculous, neither of them. They move together as they have for years, instinctively falling into a rhythm together. Where they normally held swords, now they hold each other. Their hands are clasped tightly, her other curved around his shoulder, his around her waist. He curses the golden hand preventing him from feeling the heat of her against his palm.

 

Pressed this closely to her, their bodies touching more fully than they have in months, he can feel the effect the pregnancy has had on her. He’s sure no one else can tell at this point, there’s not enough of a change to be obvious when she’s in her typical loose tunic and leather doublet. But he knows her body, he knows every inch of skin, muscle, sinew and jut of bone. He can feel the way her abdomen bows out just so, can tell that her breasts have swollen since he last touched her.

 

It’s an age and a blink before the music stills and he brings her to a stop. He’s not looked away from her face, not once, and her eyes have been locked with his the entire time. In that instant when the music fades, before the din of the crowd starts up again, it’s as if there’s nothing in the world but the feel of her in his arms, her mouth close enough to capture with his own. He knows she would punch him again if he did, so he steps away, never letting go of the hand he holds and bending at the waist to press a kiss against her knuckles.

 

They’re not even halfway back to the dais when he hears it. The raucous laughter of drunken young men. But it’s not the laugher that catches his attention, but the jokes that caused it.

 

“Poor bastard. A big bitch like her -- she must be fuckin’ him, not the other way ‘round.”

 

The hot flush of anger is an almost physical entity enveloping him.

 

“She’s pregnant you fuckin’ idiot. How’d she get that way if she’s the one with the cock?”

 

“Then he must wear a blindfold! How else’s he gonna get hard?”

 

That’s the last straw for Jaime. He’s already paused in the middle of the floor, the words freezing him in place with an incandescent rage. He starts toward them, only vaguely aware of Brienne’s halting footsteps and hushed, “What are you doing?”

 

He can’t help the cruel grin that tips his mouth when the men facing them see him and Brienne. He clears his throat and relishes as all of the color fades from the nearest man’s face, leaving him ashen.

 

“Gentlemen.”

 

“Lord Lannister.” The coward nearest him affects a half-bow.

 

“Lord Tarth, actually.” It’s the first time Jaime has said the words, and it’s strange how comfortably they settle over him. “It seems you were having a lively discussion.”

 

The nearest stutters, unable to put together two words. Though, it doesn’t surprise Jaime considering the crass, uneducated bile they were spewing moments earlier.

 

“I believe I need to make something clear.” The cutting smile falls from his face as he attempts to rein in his hungering fury. “I may be new to your island, but I am not a green young man. I spent the majority of my forty-two years navigating the courts of Westeros, from King’s Landing to Lannisport and back again. I am aware of how gossip travels in these circles.”

 

Brienne’s grip on his arm turns bruising. He knows that if he turns to look at her, he may falter, and he can’t afford that.

 

“You all seem to be operating under the misapprehension that your voices do not carry. I assure you, they do. I heard every word of what you said about your future Evenstar. Every gutless, spineless whisper from craven men who are gravely mistaken about the depths of their own wit.”

 

Jaime’s pulse thumps violently in his temple, his jaw nearly cracking with the effort of not slapping this fool across the face with his golden hand. Selwyn’s disapproval of bloodshed at the celebration of their marriage is the only thing saving this bastard from having far fewer teeth than at the start of their conversation.

 

“If I should ever hear another word from you or any of your ilk about my lady wife that is anything less than complimentary, I will make sure that you regret it for the rest of your days.” Jaime slaps his good hand against the youth’s shoulder, squeezing until pain flickers in the other man’s eyes. “Is that clear?”

 

“Yes, my lord,” the youth stutters out.

 

Jaime smiles, the old smile that let men know they were a hair’s breadth from the edge of his blade cutting through tissue and bone, ending them with a single strike.

 

When he turns to Brienne and offers his arm once again, she seems thunderstruck. Even after she takes her seat once again, she’s staring into the middle distance, unaware of her surroundings. Jaime passes her a goblet of wine, thinking perhaps she’s overly hot. Once she takes it from him, he settles his palm against her hand that sits trembling on the table.  

 

“Are you well?” He searches her face for any sign of fainting. It’s not that unusual for women to become overtaxed during their pregnancies, but he fears what it would mean for both her and the child. “If you’re ill, I could make our excuses.”

 

“Why did you do that?” The question is barely audible over the rising noise of the revelers. “Why did you say those things?”

 

To say that he is confused would be a vast understatement.

 

“Are you _angry_ with me?”

 

Her eyes dart about his face, a helpless look in her eyes so unlike her that it takes him a moment to recognize it for what it is.

 

“No one has ever --” She falters, her face almost begging him for something he can’t guess. “No one has ever defended me that way.”

 

If someone had told Jaime that the sky was green and the grass was blue, he wouldn’t be any more confused than he is in this moment. The idea that Selwyn Tarth, the giant, protective, seemingly loving father that he is would let people say things about his daughter is outrageous.

 

“Surely, your father --”

 

“Words are wind.” Brienne cuts him off. “That is what my father told me after my first appearance at one of these celebrations, when he found me crying in my room afterward. ‘Words are wind, daughter. You must let them breeze past you.’”

 

If Jaime were not well-aware that Selwyn could end him with naught more than one good punch, he would launch himself at the man here and now in front of all of Tarth’s richer citizens.

 

“No one will ever speak a word against you again. Not within my hearing, not if they want to remain on this island or be welcomed at any court in the seven kingdoms.”

 

He means every word of it with a power that should pause the heavens themselves.

 

“Jaime.” His name is a whisper on Brienne’s lips, her expression one of wonder.

 

“I promise it, milady.”

 

At that, her mouth quirks into a soft smile. A gentle warmth that feels like seeing the sun after a long winter.

 

“I am no lady.”

 

He can’t look away from her, from the sadness creeping around the edges of her smile that feels like an embrace.

 

“You are my lady.” He watches as her chest stills with a halted breath. “I may be the future Lord Tarth and not Lord Lannister, but I am as much a lion as I ever was and I will protect what is mine. You and our child are my responsibility now and I will not shirk my duties. Not ever.”

 

She looks away from him before murmuring, “Thank you.”

 

“It’s not something you should thank me for. I don’t do it for your thanks, I do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

 

Brienne swallows, looks at him and settles her hand over his, and for a brief shining moment the hope bursts in his chest. The hope that this might be a turning point, that maybe she will truly forgive him and they can build their life together, the life he dreamt of every night as he watched her fall asleep. Then, just as suddenly, she jerks her hand away, her face shuttering. It feels like a slap. He turns his head to find Selwyn watching him with that placid expression he never seems to lose. She is ashamed of him. It twists in his stomach like a creeping monster, a reminder of the woman he loved before, and the way she seemed to only love him if no one else was there to see.

 

When Brienne mutters his name again, he can’t bring himself to look at her.

 

\--

 

Somehow, Jaime makes it back to their chambers without causing a scene. Years of training at the hand of Tywin Lannister seems to have done some good, in some respects. Once the door is closed behind them, shutting out whatever noise was still trickling through the halls, Brienne reaches for the buckles of his new doublet automatically. The closures are different from his usual, worn leather one and instinctively she seems to know he would struggle with them.

 

He swallows hard when she pushes it from his shoulders and begins working out the careful knots of his tunic, leaning closer than she has in the past, her breath hot against his jaw. She lingers when she’s done, her fingers still twined with the cords.

 

“Will you help me loosen the laces of my dress?”

 

He almost groans at the question, a thousand memories flickering through his mind unbidden. He nods, unable to voice an assent with the weight of want that coils in him like an animal.

 

She turns her back to him, reaching to undo the bow at the base of her spine. He steels himself before he sets to the task of pulling the criss-crossing silk loose. He swallows at the soft sigh of pleasure Brienne emits as she takes a deep breath for the first time since being laced into the dress. Jaime steps away the instant he’s finished, retreating from the consuming urge to trail his fingertips along the tender skin at the nape of her neck, the strong line of soft skin and muscles over her shoulders, down her spine in that way that makes her shiver.

 

He doesn’t respond to her quiet thanks.

 

Jaime can feel her watch him as he pulls the tunic over his head, placing it over the back of the nearby chair.

 

“Jaime.” She says it more emphatically this time, demanding his acknowledgement. “I didn’t pull away from you for the reason you think. My father was looking at me.”

 

As if that would soothe the ache he feels. As if being ashamed of him, but only in front of her father, is any better than in front of an entire room.

 

“Does Selwyn disapprove of a married couple touching hands in front of others? I didn’t realize that Tarth was such a prudish place.”

 

He knows he’s being an ass, that old mocking tone that colors his words like an old friend.

 

“I don’t lie to my father, not like this. I hate deceiving him about something so -- so monumental.”

 

The desperate look in her eyes, that searching for reassurance, for understanding, that is what makes him feel like a true ass. The anger leeches from him in a tidal wave of shame. Of the whole world, she is the least deserving of his derision. Nothing she has done would be worthy of his ire, not in the face of his own actions.

 

“It feels like a cut when he looks at us and thinks that we married for all of the right reasons. He thinks we married for love.”

 

That’s the knife to his gut, cutting him open and spilling all of the pain and want and frustration at her feet.

 

“I did.” It’s an admission he knows she’s not ready for, one that he convinced himself she already knew, convinced himself that the only true barrier between them was her anger. “I know you didn’t, but I did.”

 

She looks at him with a shocked wonder he’s never seen before. She opens her mouth to speak. “I --”

 

“Please don’t.” She must see the pleading on his face, because she doesn’t open her mouth again. “I understand but I needed you to know. I’ve implied it. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that you already knew. But I should have said it before, so I’m saying it now.”

 

She doesn’t respond, doesn’t even nod in acknowledgement of the declaration that hangs heavy between them. Jaime can’t bear it anymore and slides into bed, his back to her, pressing his face into the pillow to muffle his harried breaths.

 

He’s still awake when she slides in behind him. He can feel the weight of her stare, and the inevitable moment she turns away from him. As she does every night.

 

\--

 

Jaime wakes before Brienne. It’s become a habit over the several weeks they’ve shared a bed again. He wakes before dawn and watches her, the steady rise and fall her her chest beneath the blankets. But this morning is different. For the first time when his eyes open, it’s to find her facing him. He watches the soft flutter of her eyelids as she dreams, the soft brush of pale blonde eyelashes that glint gold in the waning firelight. He knows better than to take the change of sleep habits as anything more than chance.

 

He misses her. It’s an odd sensation to miss someone less than an arm’s distance away. But though her body may be close enough to touch, she may as well be in Essos for all that she is within his reach. He can’t resist any longer. He has stopped himself for weeks, but the memory of the way she felt as he held her during their dance, the way her hand felt against his own last night, it’s too much.

 

Jaime reaches to brush the back of his knuckles against her cheekbone, soft enough that he can lie to himself that he doesn’t want to wake her. The feel of her sleep-warm skin against his hand makes his chest tighten with all of the love and helpless want he feels for her every hour of the day. He lingers there, just feeling the warmth and softness.

 

When her eyes flutter open, catching on him, he doesn’t pull his hand away. The memory of the hurt when she did the same to him still scratches at him. “Jaime?” Her voice is soft, barely above a whisper in their quiet room, but she doesn’t pull away from him.

 

He turns his hand so he’s cupping her cheek and brushes his thumb along the delicate line of her jaw.

 

His voice is rough with sleep as he greets her, “Good morning.”

 

Jaime watches as her lips part, her pupils dilating. He wonders if she remembers him waking her like this in Winterfell. If she, too, is caught in the memory of a hundred good morning kisses, stale breath ignored in favor of the joy and comfort of coming together in a heady rush of love and want. He wonders if she thinks of those moments he would settle between her thighs, her legs and arms cradling him and welcoming him like a homecoming.

 

He considers pressing the advantage, of kissing her with all of the feelings he’s struggling to suppress. But he knows how wrong it would be. He knows deep within that she wouldn’t forgive him if she allowed it, but that she would more likely resist him and that any trust that’s been rebuilt would be shattered. He slides his hand away from her with a soft smile.

 

Jaime knows he has to allow Brienne to come to him first. For all he knows, it might take weeks or months or even years. But he loves her enough to give her that time, loves her enough that he only wants her if she wants him again, whole-heartedly and openly. They have time. _He_ has time. He can be patient for her.

 

“Good morning," she says.

 

She blinks at him softly but doesn’t turn away. She settles into her pillow once again and just looks at him, like she’s searching for something, like she’s looking at him with some new insight after last night’s confession.

 

He will wait for her to sort it out in her own mind. He will wait for her that moment until he draws his last breath, if need be. Then he will wait for her in whatever afterlife awaits them.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, as always, dollsome is the best, most patient beta in the world and truly makes this story better every time she touches it. (She also makes sure it’s a story instead of me furiously typing feelings.)
> 
> Second, I’m utterly flummoxed but delighted at the response to Jaime’s Midnight Sun. It was absolutely a necessity for me to write and really get in his head, but I honestly didn’t expect anyway to take a break and reread the story from his perspective. So thank you all so much. At this point, there are plans for another Jaime interlude in another few chapters. Likely, after the birth of the baby. (He has a LOT of feelings about that.) Hopefully, I’ll keep this one under 9000 words but who can tell?
> 
> Third, I did post the first chapter my other WIP, _something good and right and real_ , but this story remains my top priority until it is finished. However, if, like me, the slow build angst of this fic gets sad, that fic is a Modern AU about Jaime being a preschool teacher and could not get fluffier. 
> 
> On with the show!

Brienne doesn’t even get a day’s rest from the feast and the staggering conversation with Jaime. Her father finds her in the solar attached to hers and Jaime’s chambers, blankly staring at her response to Sansa’s raven, a hundred things to say and no idea how to write them.

 

“Daughter,” he greets her, taking a seat in the chair across from her.

 

There’s an expression on his face Brienne can’t quite read. “Father.”

 

“I think it’s far past time we had an actual conversation about your marriage.” Selwyn sighs before continuing, “I know that your letter indicated that you married for love. But I would like to think I know my daughter well enough that I can tell when she is utterly miserable.”

 

“Father,” Brienne tries to protest.

 

“You all but cringe when he touches you. If it happened a few times, I could justify it as you not feeling well early in your pregnancy. But it’s every time. I’m not a fool.” 

 

Brienne has to look away from the kindness in his face, shame utterly suffocating her. 

 

“It wasn’t all a lie,” she says, quietly. 

 

“You look as if you need to unburden yourself.” 

 

The look on her father’s face is so kind it very nearly brings her to tears. She can’t bear the idea of telling him all that happened between her and Jaime, and yet, she can’t bear the lies that still weigh on her every moment she spends with Selwyn. She misses her father’s comfort, but she hasn’t allowed it since coming back home, too afraid he would read the tumult in her soul. 

 

“I first met Jaime eight years ago. He was my prisoner.” Her father’s eyebrows nearly meet his hairline. “Catelyn Stark tasked me with taking him to King’s Landing in exchange for her daughters. We were captured on the road and when the men threatened to rape me, Jaime defended me and lost his swordhand because of it.” 

 

It’s so strange to think now of how deeply she hated him, how little she respected him, in those first weeks together. Almost as strange the sudden change, in a bathtub when he was half-dead, and she was still as naive as a child. 

 

“You’ll remember tales of the Kingslayer, how he earned that name,” Brienne continues. “It’s not my story to tell, but he is not what people believe. He told me the entire story as it truly happened. It … changed things between the two of us. He left me to return to his family, leaving me in the custody of one of the Starks’ bannermen. I didn’t begrudge him that choice, even at that time. He swore to me that he would fulfill the oath to return the Stark girls.” 

 

Brienne knows in the back of her mind that the details of the story aren’t important, but she needs her father to understand why she could love a man with the reputation of Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, the man who sired children on his own sister. It must seem incomprehensible. 

 

“He came back for me. He abandoned the road back to King’s Landing, his arm still festering, to come back for me when he learned I was in danger. He jumped into a bear pit with one hand and no weapon to protect me.”

 

The look on her father’s face is one of dawning realization. The journey she had to travel from pure loathing to deep respect contracted into mere minutes rather than years. 

 

“He gave me his sword, Oathkeeper, priceless Valyrian steel forged from Ned Stark’s own. He gave me the armor that sits by our wardrobe. He believed in me in ways no one else ever had. Leaving him in King’s Landing, in the clutches of his family, it felt ...”

 

At that, tears do flood her eyes. She couldn’t comprehend, at the time, that parting from him then would be the easiest separation they would experience. Selwyn reaches for her, thumbing away one of the tears that escapes down her cheek. It only makes her want to cry more. 

 

“I didn’t see him for two years. I tried to return Oathkeeper to him. I had rescued Sansa Stark, fulfilled the purpose for which he’d given me the sword. I couldn’t admit it to myself at the time, or maybe I truly didn’t recognize it, but when he refused to take the sword from me --” She swallows against the lump forming in her throat at the remembrance of Jaime’s face, at the soft hurt that she would try to give back something so precious. “He told me it was mine. That it would always be mine. We parted, knowing we were on opposing sides, knowing that if we met during battle we would have no choice but to defend our allegiances.” 

 

Brienne presses her face into her father’s warm, comforting touch. 

 

“I don’t know if I could have. I truly don’t.” Brienne takes a steadying breath. “We were parted until I rode with the Starks to King’s Landing. We attempted to convince the Queen, Cersei, of the need for Lannister troops to help defend against the dead. She refused. Seeing Jaime, seeing him under her control, it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. All of the honor I knew he possessed was erased when she was near. I told him that he couldn’t afford to be loyal to houses, he couldn’t afford to keep to oaths when certain death loomed for everyone if we were at odds. He walked away from me and I had to resign myself to the fact that he wasn’t the man I believed him to be.”

 

“This doesn’t sound like a love story,” Selwyn interjects, anger barely concealed. “This sounds like I was right about him and how you found yourself in this situation all along.”

 

“No.  _ No _ . It’s not like that.” Brienne looks her father in the eye to finish the story. “He came. He came to Winterfell. Showed up by himself in a place where he knew everyone hated him and knew that it might mean certain death. Either at the Starks’ hands in defense of their brother, or at the hands of Daenerys Targaryen for the murder of her father. He came because it was the right thing to do. He  _ knighted _ me. Because it was the  _ right thing to do _ . We fought side by side in the battle against the dead. When it was all over, when we somehow survived -- I loved him. I had loved him for so long, and somehow, against all odds, we survived and for the first time, we were fighting together on the same side and I was allowed to love him.” 

 

The blush rushes over her face and down her neck as her eyes skitter away from her father’s.

 

“It was a celebration. That rush of survival and victory. He came to me and I didn’t send him away.” Brienne can’t bear to look at her father’s face now. His careful, noble daughter lying with a man like Jaime Lannister outside the bonds of marriage. “I was careful. I drank the tea  _ every  _ day. I thought we had _ time _ .”

 

Brienne cries in earnest then; the memory of Jaime leaving her in that courtyard still feels like being ripped into a million pieces. The love she believed in used against her with such casual cruelty -- she still can’t reconcile it with the man that touches her with such adoration, that watches her sleep every morning, the man that threatens the whole of Tarth simply for speaking poorly of her. 

 

Her father gathers her into his arms, hugging her firmly, enveloping her in his solid warmth. 

 

“That’s not the end, though, is it?”

 

She shakes her head against his shoulder, taking deep breaths until she’s sure she can speak calmly again. 

 

“He left, and he did it --” She still cringes when she remembers, the memory as painful as any injury she’s suffered. “He did it in a way that would make certain I wouldn’t follow him. His sister sent an assassin for him. He -- he thought that she would kill me and he had reason to believe she would triumph in the war for Westeros. He made certain she didn’t. By the time Sansa and I reached King’s Landing, I already knew I was with child. I hated him so much.”

 

Selwyn continues to stroke her hair, his other arm securely around her back and it’s like the strength and surety of him lessens the pain of all that led her to this point. 

 

“He immediately offered his hand in marriage. I couldn’t refuse him. I couldn’t bring a child into this world a Storm if its father was still alive and asking to be a father in more than just name.” Brienne moves back in her father’s arms far enough to look him in the eye again. “He  _ is _ a good man. He’s made mistakes as all of us have. Perhaps his are on a grander scale. But his good deeds are grander still.”

 

“Are you sure?” Selwyn asks. 

 

Brienne knows if she tries to lie to him, she won’t be able to. The catharsis of finally telling her father the whole story, her history with Jaime, what brought her to this point, is such that she wants no more deception between them.

 

“I’m sure that he will be the most loving father any child could hope for. I’m sure that he loves the child.” Brienne takes a deep breath. “I’m sure that he loves me.”

 

“But do you love him?”

 

Brienne’s instinct is to look away, the feeling in her breast so heavy and full it could choke her. But she knows her father needs to see the certainty in her eyes. 

 

“I can’t remember what it feels like not to love him.”

 

\--

 

Brienne has made a habit of watching the squires training every day. It both soothes her and makes her chest ache with want. The first weeks back on Tarth were so filled with adjusting to a new life of relative leisure, familiarizing herself with her father’s council, and assuming her role as heir to the Evenstar. But now, she has time. Sometimes it feels like too much time. Where her days were once filled with training and battle preparations, wandering around all of Westeros on seemingly impossible missions, now they are filled with -- nothing much at all. 

 

She feels Jaime’s gaze before she hears the clip of his boots against stone. It sends a shiver down her spine and raises goosebumps over every inch of her skin. The knowledge that he married her for love simmers between them. She feels him watching her every time they’re in the same room. The weight of that stare is like a cloak around her shoulders. It shouldn’t feel like protection. It shouldn’t be comforting. Yet, it is. 

 

Brienne watches out of the corner of her eye as Jaime braces himself against the parapet. Ser Goodwin leads the young squires and soldiers through drills that are all too familiar to her, the memories of Ser Goodwin’s guiding hand still clear in her mind after all these years. A soft smile settles on her lips thinking of those few happy memories of her childhood. 

 

“Good morning,” Jaime finally greets her.

 

“Good morning.” 

 

They fall back into silence, merely watching the show below. The silences between them are easier now. Brienne finds herself surprisingly, impossibly relaxed in his presence. If anyone had asked her before the feast if she wanted Jaime’s love, she would have balked at the notion. But the certainty with which he had said it, so plainly, so emphatically, settled something within her. 

 

Brienne feels his gaze again. 

 

She knows if she looks over and catches his eye, it will be the same gentle regard as when she wakes in the morning. She’s developed a habit of waking earlier, whether because the first months of pregnancy are over and she’s not so exhausted, or because -- because she finds some comfort in those quiet moments when neither of them have to acknowledge all that lies between them. 

 

Most mornings, Jaime simply rises with no more than the weight of his gaze on her. But occasionally, she feels that brush of his hand again. It’s not always against her cheek. Sometimes, it’s his thumb against her temple, brushing wisps of hair away. Sometimes, he seems to be tracing the lines of her face from eyebrow to the curve of her cheekbone, down the center of her lips before resting against her chin. 

 

Brienne has no idea if he knows she’s awake. If he’s testing the level of her acceptance of his touch. She can’t find it within herself to care. Those moments let her forget, even if just for a while. It’s only in the harsh light of day, outside the warm cocoon of their bed, that she remembers he looked at her that way and he still left. 

 

He abruptly turns toward her, leaning his elbow on the low wall. 

 

“Spar with me.” 

 

“ _ What?” _

 

Of all the audacious things Jaime has said and done in the years since they met, she has never been more flabbergasted. He smiles, that soft one that always makes a little flicker burst to life in her chest.

 

“I’m asking you to spar with me.” He says it slowly as if she didn’t understand the words the first time, not that she was baffled he would suggest such a thing.

 

“I can’t spar.”

 

Though her stomach has only been noticeably swollen to her for months, it seemed to burst overnight. She’s plainly pregnant for all to see now. Her new clothing only emphasizes that fact, with seams to allow for further growth, and a higher waist so as to not pull at her burgeoning belly. That she specifically requested the tunics be made from a deep azure blue is not worth examining. 

 

“And why not?” Jaime tilts his head. “Have you lost the use of your legs or arms?”

 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she says, annoyed at him. 

 

“I don’t see how I’m being ridiculous. You’re perfectly able to spar with me.”

 

“Jaime,” she says with all of the irritation she’s ever felt toward him bubbling to the surface. “I’m pregnant.”

 

“Yes, I’d noticed.” 

 

The smile that spreads across his face is like nothing she’s ever seen it’s so bright, so wide, so radiantly joyful. 

 

“I don’t know why you’re having trouble understanding.” Her voice has become a soft thing, as if his smile has frozen her voice in her throat. “I can’t risk being injured.” 

 

He gazes at her for a long moment before he speaks again. 

 

“Do you trust me?” 

 

The question hangs between them, the weight of it greater than the sum of the words. Tightness tugs at Jaime’s features, that terrible look of hurt that he tries to conceal. 

 

“Do you trust that I wouldn’t harm the baby?” Jaime asks, that longing of days past filling his eyes. 

 

“Yes.” She means it with all the weight of the question. She knows he wouldn’t harm her physically, and certainly not their child. “Of course.”

 

His shoulders loosen slightly at the small concession. 

 

“Then spar with me.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he holds his hand up to halt her. “Gently at first. I miss having a sword in hand, and to be perfectly honest, I would rather not make a fool of myself in front of the whole of Tarth’s military presence. If I’m to be your Lord Husband, it wouldn’t do to make myself the court jester.”

 

If she’s honest with herself, she misses her sword like someone removed an extension of herself. Its absence is perhaps the thing that has made the pregnancy nearly unbearable. 

 

“I promise,” he continues when she doesn’t respond. “We won’t do more than the youngest trainees. Nothing too dangerous.”

 

“All right,” she relents. 

 

If she thought Jaime’s grin before was radiant, this one is simply incandescent. 

 

\--

 

The sun, a rare visitor on Tarth during the winter, is out in full force as they set out for a flat, but secluded area to practice. It’s not easy. The island, with its soaring mountains and deep valleys, is short on appropriate sparring ground. When they finally find a suitable meadow, Brienne is already flushed and warm from the exertion, happier than she’s been in an age. 

 

Jaime passes her one of the practice swords. Brienne misses the feeling of Oathkeeper, the weight of it, the familiar etched metal work, but even the tourney sword feels  _ right _ . Jaime smiles as he watches her turn the wood over in her hand, adjusting her grip and testing the heft. She can’t help but smile back. 

 

They both take their fighting stance. Brienne thought it would feel more awkward with the new weight around her middle, but it’s manageable, particularly for light practice. Jaime strikes first, a gentle tap of blade against blade. Brienne scowls at him and parries with a hard strike. Jaime actually chuckles at that. The irritation bubbles beneath her skin. 

 

She strikes again and again, and Jaime continues to match her. They’re both out of practice, but the bead of sweat that trickles down her spine is nearly as soothing as slipping into a hot bath. Eventually, even she can’t help softly laughing at the sheer joy of the familiar ache in her arms and shoulders. 

 

Their clashes are slowly gaining speed and violence, the clack of wood-on-wood ringing in the air. Then she feels it, a sudden thump against her stomach. It hits her like a wave crashing against a cliff. It’s the baby,  _ their _ baby, jabbing her from the inside. She rests her hand lightly against the swell, gazing down in awe.

 

“Brienne?”

 

She looks up at him, still resting her hand where she can feel the press of her child against her abdomen. Jaime’s face is creased with fear. He rushes to her, frantic, afraid. 

 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

 

The questions spill from him, the words all bleeding into one another. His eyes search her body, looking for any signs of injury. 

 

“The baby --” She can’t even finish the sentence before he interrupts.

 

“Is it okay? Gods, I should have listened to you. I’ll get the Maester, he’ll --”

 

“ _ Jaime. _ ” That at least seems to stop him. The look in his eyes makes her chest ache for him. “I’m fine. The baby moved. I could feel them move.” 

 

She can’t keep the wonder out of her voice. Jaime’s face changes, his mouth parting, his wide eyes shifting from fear into something that matches the feeling in her on chest. He lifts his hand, but stops, letting it hover near where her own is pressed to her stomach.

“May I?” he asks. Brienne’s stomach swoops with – she’s not sure. Relief, thanks, maybe something even softer, stronger.

Instead of answering, she takes his hand and presses it flat against where she felt the movement. His hand is solid, warm as it cups her. He leans in as if drawn like a magnet. His thumb strokes her gently. Then she feels it again, like something pushing against her from the inside. 

 

“Can you feel that?” she asks him in a whisper. 

 

“No.” She expects his face to fall, for disappointment to shine through, for him to remove his hand. But the look of wonder remains as he rubs his hand in a soothing gesture against where she can feel their _child_ within her.

 

She doesn’t even know what her intention is when she lifts her other hand to cup against his jaw. Jaime looks up at her, his brow furrowing slightly, curious but not concerned. He’s allowed his beard to grow back and she brushes her thumb through the increasingly grey, coarse hair over his cheek. The fondness she has tried so hard to repress seems to flood her veins, warming her through and through. 

 

Pure love and awe shine in his eyes. She knows, of course. He told her and she believed that he meant it. But the look on his face, the way he holds her, the way his entire body changes as he reaches to feel their child, it consumes her in a way nothing has before. 

 

She bends and presses her mouth to his. She hears the sharp intake of breath as he startles, freezing for a mere second before leaning into her. The warm familiar feel of his lips against hers, the scratch of his beard against her skin, is a relief like none other. She’s never stopped wanting him. She’s scared, terrified of giving him power over her again. But as his mouth captures her bottom lip, softly pulling at it, it only feels right. It feels like completing a circle. Like two loose strings tied together at last. Their hands are still pressed together over her stomach. Jaime shifts just enough to weave their fingers through each other. 

 

Brienne can feel tears prickling against the back of her eyes as she opens her mouth to him, allowing him to deepen the kiss. The taste of his mouth, the feel of his tongue sliding along her own, it swells in her chest until she can’t keep the whimper in anymore. Jaime responds with a soft moan before dragging his mouth away from hers, resting his forehead against her temple. He gently kisses her cheek.

 

“Thank you,” he whispers, his breath warm against her skin.

  
She doesn’t know if he means for letting him feel her stomach, or for the kiss, or if it’s for both and everything in between. 

 

She squeezes his fingers and rests against him, sharing the quiet moment while it lasts.

 


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s not fair,” she whispers._
> 
>  
> 
> _He brushes his hand against her cheek until she opens her eyes. “None of this has ever been fair.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You guys._ You amazing readers. You amazing commenters. _How_ does this fic have over a thousand kudos? I don't understand! The support is truly just !!!
> 
> I know I'm so behind on responding to reviews, but I plan on doing so this evening and weekend.
> 
> An update on me: I BROKE MY LEFT ANKLE. Let me tell you, it is NOT a pleasant experience. I do not recommend it in the slightest! Because of that, I've been on some hefty pain killers that mean I sleep most of the day. So this chapter took longer than I thought it would. It was 3/4s done when I broke my ankle and it's just taken writing in small increments.
> 
> This one hasn't been beta'd by my normal beta! They're very busy, so if you notice more mistakes than normal, I apologize. But I'm VERY excited to post this one.
> 
> ...Also, you might have noticed a rating change! WHOOPS. If you don't like reading sexy times, you could just skip the third section of the chapter. I, personally, think it's important for the emotional arc and I don't think it's particularly explicit in terms of what I've written before. But I respect that many people don't like to read those scenes. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

In the days and weeks following their kiss, Jaime hovers more than ever before. Brienne frequently wishes he was still Lord Commander, or at least the Master of Arms. Anything to occupy him in some way other than eyeing her and her stomach, which, to her mind, is growing at an alarming rate.

 

If she winces, he frowns gravely. If she grunts standing up, he stares as if she’s suffered some terrible injury. If she rubs her back to work out a knot, he always half-stands as if to rush toward her, as if she needs saving from a backache. It’s bad enough that she’s lost almost complete control over her own body, something she has worked for years to hone, but that Jaime is treating her like she’s a some fragile piece of glass is truly unbearable.

 

They continue to practice with tourney swords, at least, even as her ever expanding waist makes her feel like the great lumbering cow she was once mocked for in her youth. She misses one of his parries and his sword smacks her heavily on the thigh. It’ll bruise, a pretty purple blossom against pale skin. She flinches, sucking a sharp breath through her teeth. It’s not that it’s so painful, more the sudden unexpected burst of wood meeting flesh.

 

Naturally, Jaime drops his sword immediately, hand hovering over her like he can somehow discern the level of injury by gesturing at her.

 

“ _Jaime_.” His arm drop as if lead weights are attached at her tone. “Stop hovering. You’re driving me mad.” She flails her hands in a mockery of his gesticulations. “I’m absolutely fine and you know that I would stop if I weren’t.”

 

He looks like she’s slapped him in the face, which is somehow more aggravating, though likely because it brings with it just a touch of shame at having chastened him for caring about her and their child. He hasn’t touched her since that first sparring session when she first felt the baby move. She hasn’t told him, but the child seems to delight in their practice, jabbing and kicking along with the sword clashes. It was distracting at first, but it’s become easier to ignore. It’s not painful, just odd.

 

She rolls her eyes and grabs his hand and places it against where the baby seems to be fighting against its confinement. “Can you feel that?”

 

He gasps and pushes more firmly. Brienne feels another jab where his hand is still pushing against her stomach. He laughs, his eyes flicking up to catch hers again. The look on his face is alight with such a brilliant joy she can feel it in her own chest.

 

\--

 

If at all possible, the hovering becomes worse.

 

He watches her as she undresses that evening. Normally, he would turn his back, focusing on his own nighttime rituals. But now, he gazes at her the entire time as she unlaces her tunic and peels it off. He doesn’t trace the fall of it, but keeps his eyes trained against where the linen of her undershirt pulls and strains against her stomach. It won’t be long before she’ll need the Septa to create larger ones. Being stared at grates against her already shot nerves. She aches constantly now. From the itching stretch of her skin as her stomach grows, to the sharp pains in her lower back and hips, the swelling in her feet and the extra weight that throws her balance.

 

She’s more short-tempered than she’s ever been. So, it shouldn’t surprise her when her thinning patience finally snaps.

 

“By the Gods, Jaime, just touch me.” He looks up at her, shocked and wide-eyed. She blushes when she considers her words. “My stomach. I mean, touch my stomach. You look as if you’ll die if you don’t.”

 

Jaime still looks startled as he circles the bed to stand before her. He’s tentative as he reaches out. She huffs a frustrated sigh and jerks his hand against her belly, with an annoyed, “There.”

 

Again, as the last time, the way he melts against her, the reverence with which he touches her is overwhelming. Where she feels all the pains and aggravation, Jaime simply sees something wonderful and glorious.

 

“You can touch me,” she says quietly, not wanting to break the moment. “When you need to.” Jaime’s eyes finally leave her stomach then, capturing her own with a dazed sort of happiness. “Or just when you want to. It’s your child, too. And you seem to --” She can’t even put into words what seems to come over him.

 

“Thank you,” he says, giving her relief from trying to verbalize something that there may not even be words for. “I was never allowed -- Cersei thought everyone would know if I was too involved. Or involved at all.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

She means it. She can see the degree to which he wants this, the love he already feels for the child within her. That Jaime seems shocked every time she shows him a measure of kindness when she allows something as simple as feeling their baby move -- it’s not something that a man who sired four children should feel. Not when he so clearly craves it.

 

“Don’t be.” He looks serious as he stops whatever protest she’s about to make. “I have one request.”

 

She tenses, somehow always frightened that something will break the fragile bond they’ve rebuilt over the weeks and she’ll be left shaken and barely held together.

 

“Let me help you.” His voice is just shy of pleading. “I’ve seen the way you cringe in pain. I’ve seen how  you rub at your back and wince. I don’t want to overstep. I know you’re not helpless, but I’m right here. Please, you’re giving me something I’ll never be able to thank you for enough. I don’t want you to do it alone. Selfishly, I don’t want to be shut out.”

 

She can only think to kiss him in response. She can’t let go of her fears, not fully, but the degree to which he loves their child, so free and plain for all to see, is astounding. She _wants_ . She’s so accustomed to relying only on her own strength, _having_ to, that the idea of someone wanting to help her navigate the most frightening time in her life…

 

She has no idea how to express that fragile feeling except to pour every ounce of it into this embrace. He kisses her back, softly, never pressing for more.

 

Their baby kicks against her and she wonders if it can tell, somehow, that the walls she built are crumbling.

 

She finds it hard to care.

 

\--

 

Brienne wakes to the feel of Jaime’s back pressed against her. Her arm is around him, her hand curved up to rest near his heart. She’s close enough that her breath stirs the hair at the nape of his neck. The familiar smell of him floods her senses. It’s so like before it’s almost disorienting.

 

When he shifts against her, she freezes. Either he’s awake and there’s no purpose in pulling away and pretending this isn’t happening, or, he’s still asleep and jerking away would be sure to wake up. Brienne waits with bated breath for a sign, not sure what she’ll do with either possibility. Jaime puts her out of her misery when he lifts his hand to cup hers where it lies against his chest, stretching against her body so that they’re connected from shoulder to hip, their legs already tangled together.

 

Her mouth is so close to where his neck meets shoulder and when he tilts his head, the line of his throat tensing, the corded muscles pulling tight, she can’t hold back from pressing her mouth to that tender skin. He groans low and husky, his hand flexing against hers.

 

“Brienne?” His voice is raspy with sleep.

 

Jaime turns his head as she pulls her mouth away from his neck. His face is so close that his breath puffs warm and damp against her jaw. The look in his eyes is confused, heavy-lidded with the remnants of sleep. He looks as disoriented as she feels at her proximity. As if he’s trying to sort out dream from reality.

 

Brienne can’t resist, sees no reason to in these dim hours before dawn, with the comfortable weight of Jaime against her, and the feel of his bare skin hot against her palm. She leans over him, capturing his mouth and kissing him with all of the hunger she feels. Jaime seems to melt, his mouth opening immediately so she can deepen the kiss.

 

He rolls over to face her, wrapping his arm around her waist as he kisses her back with hunger that nearly eclipses her own. The kiss is desperate, consuming her entire consciousness as it narrows to only the feel of him against her, his hand clutching at her shift, the needy moans as he pulls her lower lip between his teeth.

 

Jaime shifts impossibly closer and the hot, hard press of his cock against her stomach stills the breath in her lungs. She freezes, tearing her mouth away from his. His head drops as he shifts away. She can hear his panting breaths as he slowly disentangles himself, a different sort of tension tightening his muscles.

 

“I’m sorry,” he manages, hand stroking against her back soothingly.

 

Brienne knows she has a decision to make in this moment. She can pull away from him, pretend it was all some accident born of that moment that hangs between asleep and awake. Or, she can pull him back in, kiss him with all the desire heating the blood in her veins until it sings, and allow herself what she craves like the sharpest hunger she’s ever felt.

 

She pulls him close.

 

Jaime presses against her again, his cock rubbing against her abdomen. In the back of her mind, she expects it to be strange, his cock pressing against her swollen stomach. It’s not, not at all, all she knows is how good it feels, how badly she’s missed this and needed it and wanted him. No one else, always Jaime, only Jaime.

 

He kisses a path from her lips, over her cheeks, moving to suck at the sensitive skin where her pulse beats beneath her jaw. When he latches his mouth against the juncture where her neck meets shoulder, she reaches to push his sleep pants down.

 

Jaime jerks away, staring at her wide-eyed, face flushed and lips swollen, and so handsome she still can’t believe he was hers, that he still is.

 

“Are you sure?” he asks, frantically searching her face for confirmation.

 

“Yes,” she breathes.

 

Jaime takes her mouth again, biting at her lips, devouring her. He rolls onto his back, dragging her with him, coaxing her legs to part so she can straddle him. She rolls her hips against his, her head falling back against her shoulders, her whole body flushing with overwhelming _need_.

 

Jaime’s hand grips her thigh before moving to ruck her shift up around her waist. She looks down at him when he stops to find him gazing up at her, his face creased with concern.

 

“Is this okay?” he asks. And gods, she’s impatient for the feel of him, annoyed at having to wait, the desire building in her eclipsing all logic or reason.

  
She answers him by reaching for the hem and dragging it over her head, leaving her bare above him.

 

The look on his face is beyond words, like he’s seen a miracle within her.

 

Everything stills as his eyes trace the new curves and softness of her body since the last time he saw her this way. His right arm wraps around her, holding her still. His left hand reaches up, tracing his fingertips along her collarbone, down over the fuller curve of her breast, his thumb rubbing the tip of her nipple. Brienne’s fingers clutch at his chest, trying to find purchase in the flat planes of muscle. She whimpers as he continues to stroke the sensitive peak over and over.

 

Brienne grinds against him as she moans. “ _Please._ ”

 

Finally, Jaime abandons her breast, slipping down to reverently stroke where her stomach swells from their child. She’s never seen worship like the kind in his eyes, almost transfixed by the roundness of her belly. The look of awe on his face settles heavy in her breast. The love that she still has for him undeniable and consuming.

 

“Jaime,” she groans, writhing over him.

 

“You’re sure?” he repeats the question, his right arm tightening around her.

 

“ _Gods_ , Jaime, _yes._ ”

 

He smiles softly at her and moves to shove his pants down his legs far enough he can kick them away. And then, after months, after _forever,_ he’s pressed against her, skin-to-skin, and even that is so good her nerves seem to sing.

 

She lifts up just far enough for him to position himself at her entrance. When she sinks down onto him, their moans join in a cacophony of pleasure. The feel of him sliding into her, the ache as her body opens to him, it’s like finding her place in the world. She pauses once he’s fully inside, holding them in that perfect moment of becoming one flesh.

 

Jaime’s hand clutches at her hip, hard enough to press bruises into her skin. The look on his face is almost wild and she knows he’s struggling to remain still, to wait for her.

 

Finally, she rolls her hips and Jaime closes his eyes, head tipping back and every tendon and muscle in his neck straining.

 

The feeling of power consumes her, knowing that he is at her mercy in this moment, that she has complete control over him and their pleasure. She lowers herself onto him in slow, languid thrusts, driving them both to the brink for the sheer ecstasy of being joined again. It seems like it takes forever for Jaime to meet her thrusts, pressing into her frantically, eyes locked on hers, hand roaming her entire body, cupping her breasts and rolling her nipples between thumb and forefinger until she’s all but mewling above him.

 

“ _Jaime_.”

 

There’s a question in her tone. She doesn’t know what she’s asking for, but Jaime does. He levers himself up until they’re pressed as close to possible with her stomach in the way. Their sweat-slicked bodies slide together as he leans over to finally capture one of her nipples in his mouth, tongue circling until he sucks, scraping his teeth against hard tip. Brienne cries out, her hands curving around his head to hold him there, gripping his hair so tightly it must be painful. Jaime doesn’t seem to care as his mouth licks and sucks from one breast to the other.

 

Jaime shifts, changing angles until he can reach between her legs to rub circles against her right above where they’re joined. Brienne comes with a fury she’s never felt before. She wraps her arms around him, dragging him as tightly against her as possible. She shakes above him, trembling with the unbearable pleasure as she clenches around him in strong pulses.

 

“Gods, gods,” Jaime mutters, continuing to thrust into her as aftershocks spasm through her. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he chants against her shoulder like a prayer.  

 

The words make her feel hot and cold all over, something akin to panic. He’s never said the words aloud. He told her in so many words, confirmed it was true mere weeks ago. But the words themselves, those three syllables, have never passed his lips and as he presses into her one last time, shuddering with his own climax and holding her to him, she wants to ignore it happened at all and beg him to say it again and again until he’s so hoarse he can’t say anything.

 

\--

 

Jaime is wrapped around her, their skin sticking together. He can’t seem to stop touching her, his hand stroking down her arm, rubbing in soothing circles against her stomach, placing soft kisses against whatever skin he can reach without moving from their place.

 

Brienne curls one hand around the back of his head, fingers burrowing into the damp strands, the other tripping along his spine. She tries to ignore the whisper in the back of her mind that insists this was a mistake.

 

Jaime tilts his head, leaning up for a kiss. The sweetness of it catches in her throat. She holds him there, lips softly touching, sharing that languid contentment that follows mutual pleasure. He pulls back to nuzzle his nose against her own, a hum of contentment vibrating against her own chest.

 

It should be a perfect moment, the sun slowly creeping up the sky, its light sending bright beams through thick curtains to welcome them to the day. But his words bounce around, echoing in her mind, like an itch that can’t be scratched.

 

Jaime pauses while kissing along her shoulder, lifting his mouth until his lips nearly touch the shell of her ear. “Where are you?” Brienne goes stiff, completely frozen by the husky question and the feel of his breath against her heated skin. “Brienne?”

 

“What will you do if I can’t --” She trails off, unable to find the exact words for what she’s trying to ask.

 

Jaime begins to move away from her, the air rushing to cool the sweat-damp places they were joined. Brienne holds him in place by the hand on his back. She can’t quite bring herself to look at him, to see the confusion and hurt that must be on his face. She knows him too well, can picture it too well, and she’ll never be able to ask him if she sees that expression.

 

“It’s all right,” he says, and the distance in his voice is like a barb. “It’s all right if this was just in the moment. I understand.”

 

“No. That’s not what I meant.” Brienne takes a bracing breath. “What will you do if I’m not able to --” The words won’t come, lodging in her throat, a fear so different from the threat of violence suffocating her. “I may never be able to say those words to you.”

 

Jaime does pull away then, only so far as to lean on one elbow over her. His eyes search her face, an unreadable expression on his own, but it’s soft and kind and that makes it all the worse for Brienne.

 

“Then you won’t say them,” is all he says, simple and matter of fact.

 

Brienne closes her eyes against the open caring and love. It feels awful. She’s hurting him, but she’s hurting, too. She has no idea how to stop. Even as they rebuild, the fear is part of her every muscle, in every heartbeat, clouding her thoughts when he touches her so gently.

 

“You won’t wait forever.” There it is, her deepest worry spoken for the first time, real and tangible in a way it wasn’t before.

 

“I will.” His tone so sure, she can’t help but start believe him, a tiny spark bursting to life in her chest. “And if you never say those words to me, then I’ll have spent my life exactly as I wanted: loving you and our child, caring for you both in every way that I’m able, and doing everything I can so that you never have cause to doubt me again.”

 

She’s so very tired of crying, yet she can feel that emotion rise within her, and the burn of tears gathering in her eyes.

 

“It’s not fair,” she whispers.

 

He brushes his hand against her cheek until she opens her eyes. “None of this has ever been fair.”

 

“I can’t ask you to wait forever.”

 

“You wouldn’t.” He says it in a way that speaks of the past, of the impossible tasks set for him by everyone he ever cared for. “You would never ask it of me and that’s why it's so easy to say that I will.”

 

She pulls him down and kisses him. She hopes he can feel the depth of her gratitude.


	8. Jaime's Midnight Sun 2: Electric Babygaloo Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Ah,_ Jaime thinks, _it is a shame that I would survive certain death through countless wars only to be beheaded in my father-in-law’s solar._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are getting two chapters today, because this Jaime POV got away from me a bit and after talking to my beta (the imminently talented and wonderful and amazing dollsome), it made the most sense to bust it into two.

Jaime hasn’t felt this level of apprehension since he was a very small boy being summoned to his father’s solar. In point of fact, this isn’t that far removed. The summons from Lord Selwyn came shortly after the midday meal. Jaime cannot fathom what the man could have to speak with him about. They haven’t spoken privately in the several months since Jaime arrived on Tarth. 

 

Selwyn is sitting behind his massive desk when Jaime enters the room. Brienne’s father does nothing more than lift an eyebrow in greeting as Jaime bows deeply with a deferential, “Lord Tarth.”

 

“Sit,” Selwyn says in reply, nodding toward the chair facing his desk.

 

Jaime automatically obeys. He does his best not to fidget, but it’s difficult; silence hangs heavy in the room. Selwyn doesn’t even look at him until he’s signed and sanded whatever scroll he’s writing on. Jaime wonders if he was doing so simply as an intimidation tactic, but, regardless, it works all the same. Finally, he levels Jaime with a stare that would put the fear of the Stranger into the entirety of Westeros. 

 

Selwyn finally breaks the silence. “I had an interesting conversation with my daughter this morning.” 

  
Jaime blanches. 

 

He thinks he may see a twinkle in Selwyn’s eyes. Whether it’s malice or amusement remains to be seen.

 

“Might I inquire as to the topic of this conversation?”

 

“I confronted Brienne about what I’ve observed between the both of you.” Selwyn leans back in his chair, hands braced on the arms. “I had my doubts as to this being a love match.”

 

“Ser,” Jaime begins, but Selwyn stops him. 

 

“My daughter may seem hard to the outside world, but I have known her since her first cry.” Even Jaime can see the depth of love that Selwyn holds for his only child. “She is the softest and kindest of women. More to the point, she might be the worst liar in all of Westeros.” If Jaime were less worried for his life, he might have laughed at the truth of that statement. “I asked her if she found herself compromised and forced into this marriage.”

 

_ Ah, _ Jaime thinks,  _ it is a shame that I would survive certain death through countless wars only to be beheaded in my father-in-law’s solar. _

 

The utter certainty of his imminent demise must have shown on his face, because the twinkle in Selwyn’s eye is suddenly matched by a mischievous smirk on his mouth.

 

“Well, if I had any doubts as to the sequence of events that led to this marriage, they have certainly been answered by that expression.” 

 

Jaime is not prone to blushing, that’s Brienne’s purview. But still, he feels the blood rush back to his face. He’s been too long away from court if he can be so unmanned by a simple conversation. 

 

“Oh, do take a breath,” Selwyn says with a roll of his eyes. “And find your tongue while you’re at it.”

 

“I did not force myself on Brienne,” Jaime finally says, his voice sounding strangely loud and hoarse. 

 

“I should think not.” Selwyn actually looks amused at the thought. “I would wager she’s as strong as you with twice as many hands. No, my daughter explained things  _ extensively _ .” 

 

Jaime hasn’t felt this uncertain of himself in decades, not even when facing the Dragon Queen herself. 

 

“For someone that was once known for his wit, you’re curiously silent,” Selwyn says. 

 

“Ser,” Jaime begins again, choosing his words carefully. “I can’t pretend to know what Brienne shared of our story. But let me assure you, I love her.”

  
“Does Brienne know this?” 

 

Jaime swallows hard, knowing that had this conversation taken place even a fortnight before he would have answered with much more certainty, and been all the more incorrect for it. 

 

“I thought she did.” Jaime makes himself meet Selwyn’s stare. “I realized recently that she didn’t, not fully.” Selwyn’s face remains impenetrably hard. “I don’t want her to ever have reason to doubt again.”

 

Something shifts in Selwyn’s face, almost imperceptibly small. It’s not exactly a softening, but Jaime thinks it may be an understanding. 

 

“Make certain she doesn’t.”

 

Jaime knows that’s a dismissal. 

 

\--

 

Jaime can’t seem to stop looking at her. When she enters a room, it feels like he’s a moth to a flame. There’s something different now. Now that she knows when he said his vows he meant them true, now that she knows how he feels. It’s too easy for him to forget that Brienne isn’t like other women -- isn’t like Cersei -- that she would never have presumed he would love her. That any man would truly love  _ her _ . 

 

That he destroyed it before she knew in the first place will leave a mark on him he’ll never be rid of. 

 

When he wakes in the morning, Brienne’s always facing him now, like maybe she’s a moth, too. 

 

The need to be close to her is harder and harder to bear. It’s all he can do some mornings not to pull her to him in desperation. Those mornings, he has to leave without even brushing his knuckles along her cheek. It wouldn’t be enough.

 

Jaime watches her now, her eyes trained on the sword practice happening in the courtyard below. He’s seen how restless she’s been, even as her stomach has bloomed with the growth of their child, enough that now anyone can see what they’ve made. He’s never been allowed possessiveness, and the burning joy of knowing that everyone that sees her knows that she carries their child -- he’s not proud of the chant of  _ mine mine mine _ that echoes in his mind, but he can’t deny it’s there. 

 

He can tell the moment she senses him behind her, the slight tightening in her shoulders and tilt of her neck. It’s not tension, just the awareness of a soldier still battleworn and cautious. 

 

Jaime comes to rest near her and the soft, nostalgic smile that touches her lips as Ser Goodwin shouts orders to the squires makes him yearn so deeply for that to be directed his way. 

 

“Good morning,” he greets her. She returns the favor without even looking at him. 

 

The silences that hung between them once felt like being pricked by a rosebush full of thorns. This one is nearly peaceful, like she’s no longer bracing herself for the next blow.

 

Jaime can see the marrow-deep need in Brienne’s eyes as she watches the training. It’s a look he knows well, the same feeling after he lost his hand and thought he would never hold a sword again. But he did, and there’s no reason for her to look that way. Not when there’s a simple solution. 

 

“Spar with me.”

 

“ _ What _ ?”  The expression on Brienne’s face is so flummoxed, it’s all he can do not to laugh. 

 

He can’t quite keep the teasing smile off of his face, though. Brienne’s mouth immediately settles into that stubborn line that makes a flood of  _ yes, her _ flow through his every muscle.

 

“I’m asking you to spar with me.” He says every word carefully, as if she didn’t catch them all the first time, knowing it will set her back up and make her eyes glint with ire.

 

“I can’t spar.”

 

“And why not?” Jaime tilts his head, letting that ‘stupidest Lannister’ look fall over his features. “Have you lost use of your arms and legs?”

 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!”

 

There she is. There’s his Brienne. Pure, unadulterated aggravation not muddied up by hurt and fury. 

 

“I don’t see how I’m being ridiculous. You’re perfectly able to spar with me.”

 

“Jaime.” She levels a look at him, that one meant to put him in his place and make him see reason. “I’m pregnant.”

 

That sentence, only two words, hits him like a bolt. The fact that Brienne is pregnant -- that it’s his child, that everyone knows it’s  _ their  _ child -- never leaves him, but the simplicity with which it’s now a part of them always feels like something beyond joy, something too grand to put into words.

 

“Yes, I’d noticed.”

 

Brienne’s face immediately softens, her voice quiet as she explains, “I don’t know why you’re having trouble understanding. I can’t risk being injured.”

 

Even that swells within him. The knowledge that she is protecting their child from harm, even as she yearns for some familiarity. He knows he can give this back to her, if only she will believe him. 

 

“Do you trust me?” 

 

Brienne stares at him like he’s slapped her. Not the righteous, protective cloak of anger she’s carried about her for weeks, but something gentle and sad. Something that pleads with him to not make her answer. 

 

He understands Even as it brands him with shame, he understands. 

 

“Do you trust that I wouldn’t harm the baby?”

 

“Yes, of course,” she says vehemently, decisively.

 

“Then spar with me.” Brienne opens her mouth, the line of her jaw already screaming her protest before any sound can leave her. Jaime holds up his hand to stave her off. “Gently at first. I miss having a sword in hand, and to be perfectly honest, I would rather not make a fool of myself in front of the whole of Tarth’s military presence. If I’m to be your Lord Husband, it wouldn’t do to make myself the court jester. I promise. We won’t do more than the youngest trainees. Nothing too dangerous.”

 

When she agrees, it’s all he can do to keep the happiness within him and not embrace her and hope she can soak it in like sunshine.

 

\--

 

Jaime follows Brienne over the rocky hills and gentle slopes of Tarth. He’s not sure he’s ever experienced anything like the colors of Tarth. The seas are truly sapphire tinted, but no one had thought to describe the rich emerald grasses and slate colored outcroppings, the white haze of waterfalls crashing into the pools beneath them. He can’t be sure if it’s the freedom that comes with peace, or whether Tarth is simply that beautiful in comparison to the mainland, but it hardly matters as he draws in that damp, green smell of dewy moss. 

 

Brienne traverses the landscape with all the ease of someone who spent their life combing these exact grounds, memorizing every nook and cranny with the enthusiasm only born of childhood and escape. 

 

She finally pauses. When she turns to him, her face is flushed pink with exertion, white blonde hair dancing around her forehead in the breeze that seems constant on Tarth. She looks so peaceful, pleased with herself and the place, that even seeing him doesn’t shift her expression.

 

Jaime passes her one of the tourney swords and watches as she turns it over and over in her hands, testing the weight and balance of it. She looks settled that way, her body immediately moving with a different ease and grace. She smiles at him when her eyes catch his.

 

As if cued by some greater power, they both take their fighting stance as one. He taps his sword against hers lightly, both a test and a tease at her worries. It has the intended effect immediately, her jaw setting mulishly as she hits back with ten times the force. They spar, perhaps more vigorously than he imagined, but the burn of his muscles, the pounding of his heart, the energy between them eclipses all former intention.

 

She’s all there is. 

 

The fluidity with which she moves, the power behind every strike, the fierce look on her face, it combines to make the woman that he loves to his very bones. He could fight with her until he turns to dust and it won’t be enough time. 

 

Then Brienne stops. She freezes, an unreadable expression on her face as her hand drops to her stomach. Jaime feels like he’s been plunged into the icy waters beyond the wall, the shock of panic turning him numb from his face to his toes. 

 

“Brienne?” She looks up at him, still cupping the swell of her abdomen. He finds his feet, finally, and all but throws the tourney sword away, no thought except to get to her, to help her, to fix this. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

 

“The baby --” Her voice trembles.

 

“Is it okay?” The fear is unlike anything he’s ever felt. “Gods, I should have listened to you. I’ll get the Maester, he’ll --”

 

“ _ Jaime. _ ” Brienne’s firm voice cuts through the throbbing of his heart and increasingly shallow breaths. He looks to her to find wonder, rather than terror in her eyes. “I’m fine. The baby moved. I could feel them move.”

 

The swoop of the fear being replaced by -- by something greater than joy is almost dizzying. It happens so suddenly, all at once, bone-deep dread swallowed in a tidal wave of relief and happiness and excitement and anticipation all rolled into one. He reaches for her immediately, stopping himself before he actually touches her.

 

“May I?” he asks, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. 

 

Brienne takes his hand instead of answering, her rough fingers cupping around his palm and dragging it to her stomach. She presses his palm flat, right below where her navel dips, and holds him there. He draws closer as if pulled by a string attached from his heart to the child that has demanded attention from its parents, finally. He strokes her taut muscles with his thumb, only just holding back from speaking words of encouragement for another movement. Jaime hears her breath catch. 

 

“Did you feel that?” Her voice is so much closer than he expects, that he feels it all down his spine. 

 

“No,” he answers simply. He can’t feel anything yet, knows it’s unlikely for many weeks if memory serves, but merely knowing that Brienne feels their baby’s first kicks and flutters is enough to make him feel weightless for the first time in years. And their baby -- of course,  _ their  _ baby -- would make its presence known as its parents clashed swords again and again.

 

Jaime startles when Brienne’s other hand settles against his jaw. He lifts his eyes to meet her gaze, something there he can’t bear to put name to as her thumb strokes through the coarse hair of his beard. He doesn’t know what he expected, if he expected anything in truth, but when she leans in and presses her mouth to his, it surprises him so deeply he can’t move for a moment.

 

Only for a moment. He leans into her embrace like it’s an oasis in the desert he’s been wandering for an eon. He savors her familiar warmth, the scent of her after a sparring session, the softness of her skin where their hands are still joined over her stomach. He moves his fingers until he can lace them with Brienne’s, as if they are both holding their child as they hold one another. 

 

Jaime presses his tongue just lightly to her lower lip, a habit born of countless times their mouths have met. She opens to him as easily as ever, and her familiar taste against his tongue would bring him to his knees if she weren’t right there with him. She whimpers when he strokes his tongue against her own and he pulls himself away by sheer force of will before he pushes her too far and ruins this perfect moment. 

 

He sets his forehead to her temple, against the still-damp hair. He kisses her flushed cheek, and whispers, “Thank you.”

 

Brienne says nothing, but she squeezes their entwined fingers and doesn’t move away.

 

\--

 

Jaime knows he’s annoying Brienne. The aggravation is painted across her face in broad strokes. It was already apparent before he felt the baby moving, but after that --

 

The feeling of their child kicking and jabbing at his hand was transcendent. It’s not that he didn’t realize that the child was real, he’s seen the way that Brienne’s body changes nearly every day, but to be able to touch them made it all the more real. It hit him in a wave, the fact that soon he would be able to hold their baby in his arms. 

 

He hopes the child looks like Brienne, her big blue eyes and pale blonde hair, her kindness and honor. He hopes the child has nothing of the darkness that is part of his core. 

 

\--

 

Jaime watches as Brienne unlaces her tunic, leaving her in only the thin linen undershirt. The fabric is translucent in the firelight, her body a distinct shadow. The linen pulls tightly against her stomach, the seams nearing their breaking point. She presses her hands against her lower back, working out a knot and outlining exactly how full the swell of her belly is.

 

“By the Gods, Jaime, just touch me.” He startles, looking from her stomach to her face. She blushes a bright pink. “My stomach. I mean, touch my stomach.You look as if you’ll die if you don’t.” 

 

Now it’s Jaime’s turn to be embarrassed. He hasn’t been willing to ask first, too afraid of the hurt if she denies him the right. He  _ craves _ it, though, can’t do anything but think of the next time he’ll be allowed to touch her.

 

He circles around their bed until he’s standing in front of her. He can’t make his hand connect to her stomach. She huffs a frustrated sigh at him and jerks his hand against her stomach. “There.”

 

Jaime relaxes instantly, curving into the shelter of Brienne’s warmth. It’s like the strongest wine. Even now, when the baby doesn’t seem to be moving, just the firm feel of her abdomen beneath his palm makes him nearly drunk with peace.

 

“You can touch me.” She breaks the silence, her voice barely louder than the crackling fire. “When you need to.” Jaime looks from where his hand rests to her soft blue eyes. The kindness there is breathtaking. “Or just when you want to. It’s your child, too. And you seem to --” She trails off helplessly. 

 

“Thank you,” he says, his tone just as low. “ I was never allowed --” He pauses and judges the look in her eyes, wanting to explain, but not wanting to break the ease between them. “Cersei thought everyone would know if I was too involved. Or involved at all.”

 

She doesn’t look away from him as she says, “I’m sorry.”

 

Gods, she  _ means _ it. That alone is -- Jaime loves her so much, can’t imagine why the Gods blessed him and cursed her with each other. She’s always been too good for him, and he can’t pretend to care about that anymore.

 

“Don’t be.” Before she can respond, he continues, “I have one request.”

 

Her entire countenance changes at once, her body tensing, muscles hardening underneath his palm where he still cups her stomach. 

 

“Let me help you.” He knows he’s near begging, but he can’t hold it in any longer.  “I’ve seen the way you cringe in pain. I’ve seen how  you rub at your back and wince. I don’t want to overstep. I know you’re not helpless, but I’m right here. Please, you’re giving me something I’ll never be able to thank you for enough. I don’t want you to do it alone. Selfishly, I don’t want to be shut out.”

 

Brienne looks at him for a long moment and then leans down and kisses him gently. 

 

The baby kicks against his hand. He smiles against her lips.

 

\--

 

Jaime swims out of the fog of sleep to the warm weight of a body against his back, and a warm hand resting over his heart. He lifts his own to cover it, still halfway between sleeping and waking as he arches against the person behind him. A mouth presses against the tender skin of his throat and he groans low in his chest, grasping at the hand beneath his own. 

 

Consciousness slowly seeps in as his heart thrums faster in his chest. He can’t quite believe it’s happening, half-certain he’s simply dreaming.

 

“Brienne?” 

 

The mouth moves away from him and he cranes his head around to find Brienne behind him, eyes heavy-lidded and a fire kindled in them he hasn’t seen in months. He doesn’t even have time to process what’s happening before her mouth seizes his in a desperate, heated kiss. Jaime opens to her as easy as anything, rolling over in her arms so they’re facing one another, so she can kiss him deeper and deeper.

 

Jaime clutches at the thin nightshift, pulling her lower lip between his teeth and biting at it the way he knows she likes. She groans against him, one of her hands cupping his jaw, the other tangled in his hair. He’s been aroused since the first moment of wakefulness, from the mere heat of her against him again for the first time in so long, but the taste of her has him achingly hard. He moves against her, his cock pressed to the swell of her stomach. She freezes immediately, tearing her mouth away from him and the fear eclipses everything. 

 

Jaime eases away from her, not all at once, refusing to be panicked in this warm embrace. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and rubs a soothing hand along her spine. 

 

But then she pulls him close again, and he couldn’t keep away from her with the weight of a thousand horses dragging at him. He has no capacity to worry if the feel of his cock rubbing against her belly is odd, or too strange, he only knows how good it is to hold her this way again, to know that she feels that need, too. 

 

He kisses a trail away from her mouth pausing at the spot where her pulse throbs heavy against the thin, transparent skin underneath her jaw before latching onto where her throat meets her shoulder, not caring that he’s sucking a hungry, purple bruise against the flawless pale skin. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Brienne’s hands suddenly push at the waist of his pants.

 

Jaime pulls away to stare at her, wide-eyed, heart nearly beating out of his chest. 

 

“Are you sure?” he asks, breathlessly.

 

“Yes,” she breathes into the space between them.

 

He is lost. 

 

Jaime takes her mouth again, a harsh bruising kiss and pulls her with him as he rolls to his back. He drags her leg across his body until she’s straddling him, glorious and brilliant as she looks down at him. She rolls her hips against his, flinging her head back. He tightens his grip on her thighs, clinging to the tattered shreds of his control as he slowly rucks the linen up her pale legs.

 

Brienne turns to gaze down at him, cheeks flushed, eyes heavy, her pale hair made a halo by the firelight at her back. 

 

“Is this okay?” he asks again, still bracing for the moment she stops this.

 

She looks annoyed and if he were less terrified, it would make him smile at the familiarity of it. She reaches for the hem of her gown and drags it over her head. 

 

_ Gods _ . There has never been anything as magnificent as Brienne. A goddess made flesh, milky skin turned golden by the firelight, shoulders broad and proud, her breasts fuller than the last time he held her this way. The curve of her stomach makes his own clench with  _ want _ , with  _ need _ . He traces the new curves of her body with his hand, wrapping his right arm around her waist to hold her in place while he does so. 

  
  


She would never believe it if he told her in the daylight, but Brienne has been beautiful to him for so long. But if she were beautiful before, he has no words for what she is now. All of that power she barely kept leashed now paired with the strength of what it takes to bring a new life into the world. 

 

When he reaches her breasts, he can’t help but pause, cupping one in his hand and brushing his thumb against her nipple. It hardens under the caress. She whimpers, pressing into his grip as he continues to rub and pluck at the peak. 

 

“ _ Please _ ,” she asks, grinding against him. He leaves her breast to smooth his hand along her stomach, stroking the full curve of it in reverence. “ _ Jaime _ .” 

 

Brienne is still writhing against him. But he has to ask one more time. He cannot have her regret this in the morning. He doesn’t know how he could survive her pulling away after this, or hating him for taking advantage of her moment of weakness.

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“ _ Gods,  _ Jaime,  _ yes _ .” 

 

He’s never heard her sound so frantic. He shoves his pants down his legs and then she’s against him, hot and wet against his cock and nothing, nothing could ever compare to this, to her.

 

Brienne’s powerful thighs flex as she lifts herself far enough for him to guide himself into her. When she sinks down it’s better than it ever has been, her body stretching around him, welcoming him home as he slides into her until they are fully joined once more. He clutches at her leg and hip and tries to control the frenzy within. Every muscle screams at him to move, to take her, to remind her of why this is so good. He wants to make her forget why they ever stopped.

 

When she finally rolls her hips, taking him just that much deeper, his eyes roll back in his head, the growl in his chest almost primal.

 

He takes a moment to gather himself, to make sure he has control and that this won’t be over too soon. But then he meets her thrust for thrust, his hand coming up to cup her breast once again, unable to resist the weight of it against his palm. He rolls the nipple between thumb and forefinger until she says,  _ “Jaime _ ,” like she’s searching for something she can’t find. 

 

He levers himself up until his stomach is curved against her own and he can reach her breasts with his mouth. He pulls one of her nipples into his mouth, setting his teeth against it. Brienne nearly screams, her hands clutching his hair to the point of pain, holding him in place as she moves against him even harder. He moves to her other breast, repeating the same motions as she teeters closer and closer to the edge.

 

Jaime moves then, angling his body and gripping her with his right arm until he can slide his hand between them, circling right above where their bodies meet again and again until she clenches around him, her cries echoing off the stone walls. Her arms wrap around him, pulling him into her with the strength he’s missed so fiercely. 

 

The pleasure of her body tightening around his cock overwhelms him as he pushes into her frantically.

 

He doesn’t even realize what he’s saying when he chants, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” against the slick skin of her shoulder as his climax slams into him in a violent rush.

 

He trembles in her arms, grateful she doesn’t let him fall. 


	9. Jaime's Midnight Sun 2: Electric Babygaloo - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She rolls her eyes._
> 
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> _“You can’t possibly know the baby is a girl,” she repeats for the hundredth time, still more amused than aggrieved._
> 
>  
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> _“She tries to punch me every time I speak to her for too long,” he explains, also for the hundredth time. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”_
> 
>  
> 
> __

The maids finish filling the enormous copper tub in front of the fireplace in their chambers, steam rising in damp wisps from the surface of the water. They smile shyly at Jaime after setting soaps, oils and towels on the short table next to the bath, dropping into quick curtsies before leaving the room. He turns to find Brienne with a raised eyebrow. He laughs and raises one in response.

 

“Are you _jealous_ , my lady?” He walks to her with a knowing smirk on his lips. He unlaces her tunic, pulling the strings from their holes and pushing it from her shoulders.

 

“And if I were?” Brienne glares at him, but the heat in her eyes is far from anger. She undoes the various closures of his own clothing, helping him to disrobe as her does hers, both of them moving more quickly after weeks of practice.

 

He leans toward her as he pulls at the tie of her pants. “I would have to convince you there was no reason to be.”

 

He’s close enough that their breaths mingle humid against the other’s mouth. Brienne hesitates only a moment before tugging him to her for a searing kiss.

Brienne has no reason to be jealous of the maids, as she well knows. They wake more mornings than not tangled together, bare skin to bare skin. Even when clothed, she curls around him and holds him close as they sleep. But the fact that they are once more on terms that allow for teasing -- well, he can’t always resist. Not when it gets such satisfying results.

 

Jaime pulls away, sucking in a deep breath. “Our bath will be too cool if we continue.”

 

Brienne moans quietly in the back of her throat, but releases him to finish removing the last remnants of her clothing. Jaime steps away, grabbing her hand and walking her to the tub. He climbs in first, opening his legs for Brienne to settle between them. The groan she releases when the hot water surrounds her sore and cramping muscles puts anything Jaime’s ever coaxed from her to shame.

 

She relaxes against him, sliding down far enough that she can rest her head against his shoulder. Jaime has never been more thankful for Brienne’s lineage of Selwyn Tarth sized men than when he found it resulted in bathtubs large enough for two grown adults. It wasn’t easy to talk Brienne into sharing the first time; she was convinced she would be too large or heavy for him to rest comfortably. However, Jaime’s never graciously taken no for an answer, and a combination of foot massage and gentle insistence made short work of her protestations.

 

Jaime goes through the routine they’ve established by this point, washing her with the soap first, from her neck to her fingers, over her chest and stomach. She lifts one leg at a time, so he can lean around her to wipe the cloth against the pale skin. It’s awkward, but it hardly matters when he looks at her contented face, flushed from the heat of the bath.

 

When he moves to the oils, Brienne all but melts against him as he carefully works the cramps and knots out of her warmed muscles. It took a fair bit of practice, working out the best method between his hand and his stump, but now Jaime knows all of her weakest points, the ones that trigger that throaty sigh and seem to render her limbs boneless, and he uses that knowledge ruthlessly.

 

Jaime kisses the side of Brienne’s head. “We should get out before you fall asleep in here.” Brienne hmms. Jaime chuckles and shifts just enough to nudge her. “I don’t I think can carry you alone at this point.”

 

Brienne turns her head and narrows her eyes at him, but levers herself forward by gripping the sides of the tub. Jaime slips out from behind her to wait beside the bathtub. He holds out a hand for her to take, helping her to stand. The firelight catches the rivulets of water as they flow over the curves of her body. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could capture this precise moment in a painting. Brienne, tall and powerful, soft and warm, heavy with child.

 

He dries her off before leading her to the bed. The most astonishing thing, the part Jaime still can’t quite believe, is that every night she lets him stroke her stomach to his content. She lies back against their pillows and bares her stomach. She watches him as he murmurs to their child until it kicks back at his voice.

 

It doesn’t take long this time. He’s just placed his hand against the firm swell when he feels a jab against his palm.

 

“Someone enjoyed her bathtime.” Jaime smiles up at Brienne.

 

She rolls her eyes.

 

“You can’t possibly know the baby is a girl,” she repeats for the hundredth time, still more amused than aggrieved.

 

“She tries to punch me every time I speak to her for too long,” he explains, also for the hundredth time. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”

 

Brienne gently kicks a leg out, catching him in the stomach, nudging him more than anything more violent. Jaime jerks away with a laugh.

 

“See what I mean?” Jaime turns his mouth so that he’s speaking directly to where the baby is sparring with Brienne’s stomach. “Now, little one, it’s time for you to sleep. You don’t let your mother sleep enough and it makes her very disagreeable.” Another, slightly more aggressive, kick from Brienne’s leg lands on his hip. “And she wonders how I know you’re a girl and more like her than you are me. When you’re out here, I will be black and blue head-to-toe if you two continue to team up against me.”

 

“ _Jaime._ ” When he looks up Brienne seems caught between annoyance and amusement. “You are a ridiculous man.”

 

He grins broadly at her, places a kiss against her abdomen before leaning up to press a kiss against her lips as well. She kisses back fully, capturing his upper lip between hers for just a moment before relaxing back against the pillows.

 

“You’ll be very disappointed if it’s a boy if you keep this up,” she tells him, a shallow furrow between her brows.

 

“Never,” he vows. “Nothing about our child could ever disappoint me.” She swallows heavily, as she always does when he turns a light conversation serious. He can’t help it, can’t let her have any doubts as to his true feelings.

 

He has promised her patience, and he means it. She may never say the words to him, but her love is there in other ways. In her forgiveness. In her trust. In the way she lets him close again. In the way she never denies him any involvement he asks, not anymore. In the way she holds him when he moves inside her. In the way she kisses him like she’s starving just for him.

 

He won’t let himself question it. He won’t let himself be hurt by her reticence. He has more than earned any hesitation she still feels. The fact that she doesn’t stop him from saying it, or whispering it to their child every night, doesn’t shy or cringe away when he says it against her skin as they move together in the night, that’s more than he imagined possible for months.

 

It’s enough.

 

\--

 

Jaime is banished from Brienne’s presence for an entire day, according to the lady herself.

 

It’s been weeks now since Brienne was able to comfortably sword fight. Without that physical outlet, and the increasing toll of pregnancy, her patience for Jaime’s teasing, help, or mere presence has diminished significantly. In fact every comfort that once worked, from his touch to a hot bath, now seems to irritate Brienne more than whatever pain she’s in.

 

He’s helping Ser Goodwin put the youngest squires through a series of footwork exercises when a flushed, sweating page stops before him, sucking in ragged breaths as he stutters out, “L-l-lord Tarth.”

Jaime knows before the young man can say more.

 

“Where is she?”

 

“Your chambers, milord.”

 

Jaime runs as if there’s wildfire nipping at his heels.

 

\--

 

Jaime has to threaten the positions of several midwives and one maester when they try to banish him from Brienne’s side. He hasn’t missed the birth of any of his children to this point, and the idea that one frail old man and four prim women could keep him away from Brienne is laughable, at best.

 

“My lord, this is no place for a man,” one of the midwives entreats.

 

“Tell me,” Jaime says, that cutting Lannister smile on his lips, “was I outside the chamber when the child was created?”

 

“ _Jaime_ ,” Brienne hisses.

 

He ignores her. “I was here when the child first took root and I will be here when the child is born into this world. The Stranger himself couldn’t drag me away, so I don’t recommend you try.”

 

It’s not often Jaime uses the imperious tone his father once employed, nor does he have much use for the threat of certain destruction that Lord Commander would rain down upon some unfortunate souls, but he uses both in that moment and takes some base pleasure in the way the room cowers before him. They demure, of course, shrinking before their lord.

 

When he turns to Brienne, she has an unimpressed look on her face. She opens her mouth, likely to dress him down for treating them in such a way, but then her face contorts with pain as she grips the sheets between white knuckles. He’s by her side in an instant, cupping her face with his hand and murmuring nonsense to her as she breathes through the contraction.

 

“You don’t need to stay,” Brienne tells him, voice still tight with pain.

 

“Yes, I do,” he insists, settling next to her on the bed.

 

“It will be hours.”

 

“I’m aware.”

 

Brienne sighs heavily, but she leans against him, and when the next contraction hits, her hand grips his thigh for dear life as she curls against him.

 

\--

 

It is hours. Hours upon hours. The sun sets and rises again before the maester and midwives tell Brienne it’s time. The panic curdles in Jaime’s stomach, the memories of his own mother pale and drawn in the Sept, Tyrion wailing against a wet nurse’s breast, the pain on his father’s face. He can see the same sort of fear in Brienne’s face, the knowledge that her mother lost this battle as well. It’s that look that breaks through the fog of panic, that reminds him why he’s here at all.

 

“ _Brienne._ Listen to my voice.” Jaime waits until Brienne’s distant gaze focuses on him. Her hair is plastered to her head with sweat, every inch of visible skin flushed red with strain, but it’s the fear in her eyes that sticks out. “You defeated the Hound in single-handed combat. You fought back the Army of the Dead. You survived things that would fell a lesser man or woman. You saved me. You can do this.”

 

Jaime watches as the determination slowly settles over Brienne’s features, the terror fading into that battle-ready steeliness. He smiles at her softly, so proud of her, of the strength at the very core of her.

 

It’s as bloody as any battle, the groans and screams wrenched from Brienne are as haunting as any death he’s ever heard. There are moments when he thinks it will never end for her, when he falls down that hole of despair of imagining how this could end. He knows how many more times worse it must be for her, and that he can’t help her is perhaps the hardest part of all.

 

Then, with one final gut-wrenching scream, it’s over. Brienne collapses against him as their child wails its fury at being pushed into the bright, cold world outside of its mother. For a moment, Jaime worries he’s fainted he’s so light-headed. Only the weight of Brienne against him and the sounds of her sobbing into his neck from the sheer exhaustion and elation and relief keep him grounded.

 

“A girl,” the maester announces from between Brienne’s legs as he hands the squalling baby to a midwife to bathe and swaddle.

 

“Is she well?” Brienne asks, faintly, voice still choked.

 

“Judging by the power of those cries, I would think so,” the master says wryly.

 

Jaime glares at him. He opens his mouth to inform the old cunt exactly what fate awaits him for not being more respectful of his future Evenstar’s inquiries about her _child_ , when suddenly the midwife appears at his side with a squish-faced, red, screaming bundle in her arms.

 

“Would milord like to hold her?” the midwife asks demurely.

 

Jaime nods, speech beyond him as the midwife settles the baby so that her head is cradled in his right elbow. His _daughter_. Her beautiful, furious face blurs before him as tears flood his eyes, but he can’t find it in him to feel anything approaching shame. He blinks furiously and lifts his finger to trace along her impossibly soft, full cheek, over her delicate trembling chin, her tiny ears, the pale dusting of hair that suggests where an eyebrow will be. Nothing has ever been as perfect as the weight of her in his arms.

 

He finally looks up from her face to see Brienne gazing at them, tears streaking down her own cheeks. She grins at him, broadly, openly, no restraint, just unbridled happiness at the sight of him holding their daughter. The midwives finish clearing away the last of the bloodied sheets and rags as the maester cleans the last of the afterbirth from Brienne, finally allowing her to relax against the bed.

 

“I think she’s hungry,” Jaime whispers, looking back down at the baby as she twists her head around as if searching for her first meal.

 

Brienne shifts up a little higher against the pillows. She nervously fumbles at the laces of the clean gown the midwives helped her into, finally baring one breast. Jaime places the baby in her arms, stroking the pale blond wisps of hair over the crown of her head. She roots around, making furious little grunting noises until she finds and latches onto the nipple. She sucks greedily, her face finally relaxing from anger and tears. She blinks open her eyes, and Jaime smiles to see the deep blue that promises she may inherit Brienne’s eyes after all.

 

They sit in silence just watching her eat, her little body finally going slack with satiation. Jaime remains curled around them both, content to just watch Brienne’s hands learn their daughter’s face and hair, the shells of her ears, and wrinkled skin of her neck.

 

“I told you she was a girl,” Jaime says quietly, smiling when Brienne huffs a small laugh, never looking away from the baby.

 

“You were just as likely to be right as wrong,” Brienne murmurs back.

 

“Mmm, but I _wasn’t_ wrong.” Brienne finally looks away from the feeding baby to roll her eyes at him. “Do you have a name for her?”

 

Brienne goes still for a moment, not scared precisely, rather thoughtful, a pink tinge to her cheeks that has nothing to do with the exertions of the birth.

 

“Joanne,” she says, almost a question at the end of it. She blinks nervously and looks back to their daughter, brushing the back of her fingers against the baby’s cheek as she still mouths at the air in her sleep. “For your mother.”

 

“Brienne --” Jaime’s voice catches in his throat. His mother isn’t the only woman they’ve lost between the two of them. Brienne’s own mother and Catelyn Stark were both women he expected to be honored before she even considered his. “What about --”

 

“She’s your daughter, too,” Brienne says, still not looking at him. “You gave up your house and name to marry into mine. I --” She does lift her eyes to his then, the resolve solid and unwavering. “I want her to have a piece of you as well.”

 

He cries again, then, surging forward to capture Brienne’s mouth with his own, pouring all of the love and desire and overwhelming emotion of the last year into the kiss. He pulls away to press a kiss to the baby’s, _Joanne’s_ , head and feels Brienne’s hand cup around the back of his, fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck.

 

“I love you,” he whispers against the tender skin of Joanne’s temple.

 

“I love you,” Brienne says just as quietly.

 

Jaime lifts his head to share the moment with her. He finds her eyes trained solely on him. For an instant he can’t move, paralyzed by the depth of emotion in her gaze. She no longer looks at him as if it hurts to see him. She looks at him like she’s found home.

 

He smiles, wider than he ever has before, and she smiles back.

 

He leans up, pressing his lips to her forehead, hand cupping her cheek. She places her hand over his, tangling their fingers together, holding him to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this every time, but I cannot express in words how much the support for this story has meant to me. This is the first time I’ve written a multi-chaptered fic. It wasn’t always easy, but it was always rewarding, and a large part of that is the amazing readers who have encouraged me along the way.
> 
> Every thanks belongs to dollsome (on AO3)/dollsome-does-tumblr (on tumblr) for always making this story better. Her help has been completely invaluable in the shaping of this story. 
> 
> I can't believe it's almost over.


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end is here. A glimpse into Jaime and Brienne's future together after the hard road to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my lovely readers, the end is finally here. This is a shorter epilogue, but I simply wanted to give a glimpse into the future as I envision it for Jaime and Brienne. It took a long while for them to get here, and a lot of it was very angsty, but this? This is pure, unadulterated sap. It's treacle, y'all.
> 
> But I hope it's the treacle you needed. Or that it works at all. I almost never write pure sap, so. We'll see.

 

****Two Years Later****

 

Brienne holds tight -- very tight -- to Joanne’s hand as the passengers disembark the ship. Sansa appears first, her red hair whipping up in the wind, little Ned propped on her hip. Tyrion isn’t far behind, with Pod trailing him. Brienne smiles broadly as Joanne bounces on her toes, yanking on Brienne’s hand. 

 

“Patience, Joanne,” Brienne reminds her. 

 

Joanne groans, slumping and once again pulling on Brienne’s hand. Jaime chuckles at Brienne’s other side and she slants him a look that speaks volumes. Jaime merely smiles back, innocent as a newborn babe. 

 

Joanne can’t contain herself anymore as she all but shouts, “Auntie! Unca! Pod!”

 

Sansa hugs Brienne with her free arm, before crouching to be eye-level with Joanne. Joanne wraps her arms around Sansa’s neck. 

 

When Joanne pulls away she pats Ned’s arm, “Ned!” 

 

Sansa chuckles. “Yes, that’s Ned.” 

 

“Be gentle,” Brienne warns with all the weight of a parent to a two-year-old. 

 

Joanne points to Jaime and the baby he holds, “Dat’s Seyeen!”

 

“I know,” Sansa says, gently. “I’m excited to meet your new sister.”

 

Ned reaches for Joanne’s hair, his chubby hands close to gripping her blonde curls. Brienne braces herself for disaster, but Sansa manages to intercept, grabbing his hand and kissing it before he can protest. 

 

“Really, Jaime?” Brienne turns to see Tyrion staring up at Jaime, one eyebrow cocked. “A sling?”

 

“I only have one hand, Tyrion.” Jaime gently sways back and forth, his right arm supporting Selyne in swath of linen wrapped over his shoulder. “Would you have me dropping my child?”

 

“You’ve gone completely soft, brother,” Tyrion says, not quite sarcastic but not wholly affectionate, either. 

 

He turns to Brienne and bows. “Ser Brienne.” 

 

Truly, Brienne sometimes wonders why the gods saddled her with the Lannisters. As much as she loves her husband, and by extension the remaining member of his immediate family, they are impossible. 

 

“It’s good to see you, Tyrion.” 

 

“And Joanne,” Tyrion says, coming to stand before the little girl. “Why, you’re almost as tall as me now.”

 

He’s not far wrong. It seems that Joanne not only inherited Brienne’s eyes and nearly-white blonde hair, but her height as well. Her attitude, however, is all Lannister.

 

Brienne finally sees Pod still hovering behind the family, outfitted in the gleaming gold of his Queensguard armor, smiling softly as he watches them. She beckons him forward with her hand and he strides toward her, an unsure look on his face. 

 

He stops just short of her and bows deeply. “Ser.”

 

She nods to him. “Ser.” 

 

Pod’s face breaks into a grin and he hugs her tightly. The embrace is unexpected but not unwelcome and Brienne wraps her free arm around Pod. 

 

It’s Jaime that finally breaks the mood with, “I think someone is hungry.” Brienne looks over to find him letting a fussy Selyne suck at one of his knuckles to soothe her. “And I would imagine our guests would like to wash up before dinner.”

 

“Gods, yes,” Tyrion says. “And I wouldn’t turn down a bit of wine.”

 

\--

 

Brienne holds Ned on her lap, letting him play with the laces of her tunic while Sansa murmurs to a sleeping Selyne. 

 

“It’s still very strange,” Sansa says, her tone distant. She glances up at Brienne, a small, bittersweet smile tilting her mouth. 

 

“What’s strange?” Brienne asks, tugging one of the laces out of Ned’s spitty hand when it’s already halfway to his mouth, giving him a little bounce on her knee to distract him from his ire. 

 

Sansa laughs lightly. Brienne looks up and smiles at the sparkle of joy in Sansa’s eyes. Brienne can’t quite believe that Sansa is the same girl as she first met. The girl hovering on the precipice of being broken, only held together by sheer willpower and a desire to live and flourish. To see her happy, open, dressed in something other than dark grey or black wool -- as little as Brienne could have predicted her own future, Sansa’s seemed just as unlikely, if not more so. 

 

“All of it,” Sansa explains, her eyes shifting down to Ned, her smile widening even further. “We’re both mothers now. Happily so, at that. Married to Lannisters. Somehow, also happily.” She turns to look at Selyne, trailing a fingertip along one of her full, pink cheeks. “We’re at peace.”

 

Sansa looks up. The years of pain, years of not even hoping for something as easy as their lives are now, shine clearly through the happiness. Trauma no longer drowns out the joy, but it still hovers in the background, a heavy reminder of what led them here. 

 

Brienne reaches across the short distance separating them, and Sansa takes her hand, squeezing their fingers together tightly. 

 

“I don’t think I ever thanked you,” Brienne says quietly. 

 

Sansa’s brow crinkles in confusion. “For what?”

 

“For being a friend to me when I desperately needed one.” Sansa looks taken aback, her face going slack with surprise. “I know you were … concerned when I married Jaime, but you never turned your back on me. Not when you found out I was pregnant with his child. Not when I agreed to marry him in spite of his abandonment -- you never once called me stupid for the decisions I made. You were kinder than I had any reason to expect.” 

 

Sansa grips Brienne’s hand harder. 

 

“I should have been even kinder,” Sansa says, shaking her head when Brienne starts to interrupt. “I can’t imagine what you must have felt, how lonely it must have been.” Sansa’s eyes glaze over with tears. “If I’d had any shred of understanding --”

 

A loud giggle echoes down the hallway, accompanied by the pitter-patter of very small feet running. Brienne looks up just in time for Joanne to tear into the room, curls flying, chanting, “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!”  She barrels into the side of Brienne’s leg, arms draping across Brienne’s thigh, big blue eyes blinking up innocently at Brienne. 

 

“Joanne,” Brienne says. Joanne’s smile flickers slightly at Brienne’s tone. “Where is Septa Falyse?” 

 

Right on cue, Brienne hears the Septa’s much heavier footfalls on the carpets in the hall, determined and more than a little harried. Septa Falyse dips into a quick curtsey when she enters the open door, the expression on her face one of immense frustration. 

 

“Apologies, milady.” Septa Falyse squares her shoulders and pins Joanne with a look that Brienne recognizes all too well. “I only turned my back for a moment.” 

 

“It’s all right, Septa,” Brienne says, sharing in the exasperation. She looks at Joanne who’s still blinking up at her, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “Are you supposed to run away from Septa Falyse?”

 

Joanne shakes her head vigorously. “I want to play wif Ned and Auntie.”

 

“What did I say about playing with Ned and Sansa?”

 

Joanne’s chin falls to rest on top of her forearm draped over Brienne’s leg. “After nap,” Joanne answers with all the world weariness only a toddler can possess.

 

“Have you had your nap?”

 

Joanne darts a look back at her Septa, before looking down at the floor. “No.” 

 

“Then you’d best go with Septa Falyse or you won’t get to play with Ned or Sansa at all.” 

 

Joanne all but flounces her way back to her aggrieved Septa.

 

“Did she try to fight you?” Brienne asks Septa Falyse, already guessing at the answer. 

 

Brienne watches as the Septa debates internally for a moment. “Only a little, milady.”

 

“Did she apologize?”

 

“No, milady.”

 

Brienne doesn’t have to do more than level a look at Joanne before Joanne squirms in place. 

 

“Sorry, Septa,” she says, meek as a mouse. 

 

Brienne rolls her eyes when Joanne isn’t looking. “I’ll have another talk with Lord Jaime tonight,” she tells the Septa. “We’ll discuss how to handle this new fighting problem we have.” 

 

In truth, it isn’t new. Joanne punched and kicked her way into the world and has never shown a sign of stopping. However, now that Joanne is more child than infant, convincing her that it isn’t cute to spar with people anymore is going to be a trial for all adults involved. The fact that Jaime finds it amusing that his first-born has all of her mother’s fighting skills and all of her father’s restraint doesn’t help matters.

 

“Of course, milady.” The Septa curtsies again, taking Joanne’s hand in hers and marching her back in the direction of the nursery. 

 

Brienne sighs. When she looks over, Sansa’s smiling and clearly trying to hold back laughter. 

 

“She’s her father’s daughter,” Brienne says.

 

Sansa quirks an eyebrow. “Of course she is.”

 

\--

 

Selyne barely finishes nursing before Jaime reaches for her. He places her on his chest belly down so her ear is placed near his heart while he gently thumps on her back. Selyne already has darker hair and eyes than Joanne, and Brienne secretly hopes that she’s a mirror image of Jaime as she grows.

 

“Joanne escaped her Septa again today.” Jaime huffs a small laugh, an almost proud smile on his lips. “She also attempted to fight her before running off.”

 

“I don’t know why you sound so accusatory,” Jaime says, never taking his eyes off of Selyne. He moves her to rest her back against his raised thighs, her head resting near his knees, her legs kicking at his stomach. He grins at her, grasping one of her hands. “She’s your daughter, too.”

 

“I was an extremely well-behaved child.”

 

It’s very difficult to stay firm with Jaime when he looks the way he does, the way he always does whenever he’s with either of his daughters. Brienne had worried when Selyne was first born. Jaime was so convinced this baby was a boy, because they were so much calmer before birth. When the Maester announced another girl, Brienne’s heart sank a little, her worried eyes turning immediately to Jaime, convinced he would be disappointed that he didn’t get a son. 

 

She needn’t have worried. Jaime’s face lit up in exactly the same way, tears in his eyes as he took Selyne from the midwife, fingers memorizing her face exactly as he had Joanne’s. Looking at him now, Brienne can’t imagine a more contented man in all of Westeros and Essos combined. 

 

“Yes, all well-behaved young girls become knights,” Jaime says dryly. He’s now cooing at Selyne as she whaps her hands against her sides.

 

“Jaime, please pay attention.” It comes out rather more sharply than Brienne intended, but she’s exhausted. Between preparing for their guests and the feast, caring for a three-month-old that still isn’t sleeping more than a few hours at a time, and trying to corral the wiliest two-year-old in the Stormlands, she’s more sleep-deprived than she’s ever been -- even when on the fields of battle. 

 

Jaime looks up at her finally, concern creasing his brow. Brienne takes Selyne from him and places her in the cot beside their bed, handing her wooden rattle to occupy her. 

 

“You have to start being more firm with Joanne,” she tells him, almost regretfully. Jaime’s unstudied, incandescent joy at being with his daughters is undeniable. It also makes for two extremely spoiled and pampered girls. “She truly cannot go around hitting people. It was one thing when she was a baby, but she’s more than old enough to understand that it’s wrong now.”

 

Jaime sighs. 

 

Heavily. 

 

“I know you don’t like it.” Brienne places her hand over his where it lies between them. “But she’s getting unruly. You and I both know there are ways for her to get that energy out  _ without _ attacking her Septa.”

 

“What if I ‘sparred’ with her?” 

 

Brienne would roll her eyes at him, except this is likely the easiest way to save her aggravation from both Jaime and Joanne. 

 

“As long as the major point of the lesson is that she’s only allowed to hit when she’s fighting with you, then yes.” Jaime smiles. Brienne holds up a finger. “But if the fighting gets worse, we have to stop it completely. I don’t care about how much you hate making her cry.” 

 

“Fine, fine fine,” he mumbles, reaching to touch her face and draw her in. “Now, come here.” 

 

She smiles into the kiss as he pulls her on top of him.

 

\--

 

Jaime has long since given up the Lannister crimsons and golds for the azure blue and sunny yellow of Tarth. Brienne finds she doesn’t miss the Lannister colors at all. They would’ve suited her ill, and she feels a sort of pride whenever Jaime appears in the Great Hall swathed in  _ her _ colors. Brienne, herself, is draped in rose pink silk. She still has no idea how she was talked into it. However, the dress is a good deal more flattering than the last time Jaime saw her in pink.

 

The Great Hall is brimming with revelers, the people of Tarth gathered to celebrate the Queen of the North and the birth of Selyne. Brienne’s father concedes the seat at the center of the longtable to Sansa, despite her protestations that she’s far from the ruler of his island. Sansa is resplendent in a pale, nearly white, grey gown, her direwolf crown nestled on top of her head. 

 

Where once, Brienne might have felt like a hulking oaf next to her regal friend, now she simply doesn’t think of it. It’s been so long since she was the subject of ridicule, at least to her face or in hearing of their staff. And even if she were, she thinks, words truly are wind when you have the love that she has now. 

 

Jaime settles his hand over hers, smiling as Selwyn stands to make his speech. 

 

“I thank the Queen in the North for gracing our small island with her presence, especially as it is in celebration of my newest grandchild. My daughter and her lord husband were delivered of another girl, Selyne, three months ago. It pleases me endlessly to announce that she is as hale and hearty as her older sister.” Selwyn all but beams, not only at the crowd, but at Jaime and Brienne as well. It would be an understatement to say that Selwyn is enamored of his granddaughters. He very nearly puts Jaime’s adoration to shame. “Would the Lord and Lady lead us in a dance?”

 

Brienne glares at her father, but takes Jaime’s hand as he stands and leads her to the dance floor.

 

There is no hesitation this time as she goes into his arms. She wonders what image they make in contrast to the first dance he led her through in front of these same people. He is greyer, his beard heavier. She is heavier in general, especially in so short a time after the birth of their second child. But she knows that the comfort between them reads plainly, the love they have unmistakable. 

 

Jaime leads her into a dance, easily and carefree. She no longer feels the eyes of the crowd like a condemnation. She couldn’t care less what they think of the image she and Jaime make. She will always be taller than him, her shoulders forever broader, but when he smiles at her and pulls her close, when his eyes gleam with love and glint with passion -- well, she understands the words Jaime once whispered to her: lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep.

 

As the music comes to a close, Jaime takes her hand and steps away, a smirk on his mouth as he bends and kisses her knuckles. Brienne grins broadly at him and tugs him into her.

 

She kisses him in front of the gods and everyone, proud and happy, and madly in love with her husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for reading my story. I still can't believe it's over/that I finished it. What a labor of love it has been, and so healing for me after the shit show that was season 8. 
> 
> A couple of minor notes that no one cares about, but I wanted to say anyway:  
> 1) Joanne's name is Joanne not Joanna because I thought for too long about what to name her. Brienne and her, book canon, sisters who died in infancy all have names ending in "ne". For some reason, I decided this was just a Tarth naming convention. Ergo, I wanted Joanne to have her own name in a Tarth style but ALSO honor Jaime's mom.  
> 2) Selyne's name is intended to be a tribute to Selwyn. It's loosely based on the fact that there's already a Selyse in the canon, but again, with the "ne" name ending. It's pronounced like Celine. 
> 
> And thus ends my story! Honestly, I'm going to MISS all of you wonderful people! I've so enjoyed reading your thoughts about this story.
> 
> Keep an eye out for future works. I'm planning on wrapping up the preschool teacher AU in the next few weeks and then --- well, I've already plotted out an entire High School AU. Does the world need another High School AU? Probably not! But I've got an idea that won't leave me alone. I hope at least some of you will follow me there, but if not, thank you for going with me on this journey!
> 
> Thus ends the longest author's note ever!


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